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Individual Drops (PSO2 Drop Style)


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@Midori you dont even need math/game code to see this.  I was on earlier during HH About 80 min left. I wanted to play with someone but none of my friends on.  there was 14 ultimate games going  10 of them solo, 2 other games were full with 4 players. Roct (friends or team) one other game had 3 players and there was another ttf game with 2 players that was already started.

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3 hours ago, Midori said:

@Fyrewolf5

The game heavily favors solo over multiplayer when it comes to items according to math/game code. Most players are upset about this. Do you have any solutions to solve this problem? Please share.

Is this your actual stance or are you going to switch stances again the next time you post?

And I don't really see you offering any solutions Midori, the only thing you've offered to this thread is fictional evidence and confusion (most because of you, like I said, switching sides every other paragraph).

edit: Also, saying "most players are upset with this" is a gross overstatement and is basically saying they agree with you. Don't overstate your opinion as a fact, Midori. Maybe all the 6 upvotes you've got in this thread  are the people who agree with you, but 6 people isn't the 150 people that play on this server, to a majority of them haven't even got a forum account.

Edited by Auroboro
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21 hours ago, mudkipzjm said:

This is assuming everyone has the gear to solo. This is leaving out the fact you can't exactly farm as quickly with 4 people doing their own thing. Roct is probably the most efficient way to c/battle hunt now that LHB isn't a thing for the time being. I don't think you'll have people that can solo roct, at least in an amount of time that'd be efficient. Weather Effects is the easiest thing to solo that has epsilons in it, and depending on the person, can take 10-20 minutes, and that is just for two epsis, assuming you reset after the second room in tower.

Yeezus... If thats not a struggle I don't wanna know what is :x

(5 min or youre a skr00b and should get off ultima now dw)

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@Fyrewolf5 

I would... like... never compare D&D and PSO. In D&D you can die very easily against any kind of opponent/situation and that even if you have a team. Without a team it is just, either easy/normal mode adapted by a kind GM or pure hell. Then, when you die in D&D, it is most likely : burn your character sheet, recreate character.

In PSO, everything can kill you too... at the start. With levels and gears, there is monsters and level of difficulty (like normal, hard and very hard) that you just don't fear anymore. In PSO you can be the priest, the warrior and the mage all at once (hunewearl, fo). In PSO death is not final.

In PSO, a team is requiered in the following situations :

- You are bored to hell (my favorite)

- You are undergeared/underleveled

- You are trying a challenging quest like ROCT or a Time Attack

- You want to piss off some people and start drama (hate that one)

- You're a silly hacker and want to show how strong you are ahahah and then get ban because your cheats are so obvious, but, eh ! wait ! you didn't do it do you ?

So I would compare a mmorpg (even if PSO is like an ancestor to mmorpg, it is still one without the "massive" word though) with another mmorpg. In other mmorpgs, I've seen people looking for party or just duo everywhere. Because in those game there was an advantage playing in team : more xp (Flyff), too difficult (Requiem), prerequisite for some quest (name it), and so on. But well, those are still bad example because their game mechanics are nowhere near PSO.

 

@Midori

Well it is not up to us to find any kind of solution...

Or is it ? Like, we could just all say : "Screw it ! What do I care finding all those items at the end if am alone... let's play with people"

Quit the gamer logic consisting in "wanting it all for yourself" and start opening room more often... Or, just get one of each item for yourself in solo so that you're sure to get it, then play with others.

That's just a theory though. I'll try the practice and get back to you =P

That said : It's hard to find the balance between wanting items and playing with other people. And that's why, we were wanting this drop per player system. And it is true that rising the DAR rate would help with that. I would like to say that the average player has grown greedy in the last years, but that's just plain wrong. I remember when I was a kiddo playing with friends, we were already trying to steal stuff between us xD So petty, isn't it

Edited by Misombre
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@Fyrewolf5

More items in multiplayer? That's the complete opposite of what the picture shows. Even a toddler can see that soloing gives you far more items than multiplayer. Also, opinions about how a "D&D group" is supposed to play the game are completely irrelevant because everyone is entitled to their own way of playing. So I want to refrain from arguing about opinions because it's a total waste of time. 

Fact: Most of the hunts can and will be solo'd. Roct is an exception, but this drop system is here to stay even after summer event, correct? How many people are soloing olga during xmas or gryphon for post?

Fact: ~ 90% of the (serious) people are soloing. Regardless of what playstyle theories or etiquettes you want to lecture. Not my fault, it is what it is. And again, roct is an exception. If roct were soloable it would be solo'd. 

That said, what we really would like, is an incentive for the serious players to move from solo to multiplayer. This has a couple of benefits for everyone.

1. More fun and social, solo is boring

2. Newbies won't ragequit because they can finally get in on the big hunts -> bigger playerbase -> good for everyone

But at this moment, the greed for items is way higher than any other benefit gained from multiplayer. If you don't see that you're just naive.

Anyway, I really feel like I'm wasting my time arguing with people that don't want change.

 

Edited by magictrick
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I think time is the key here. It's takes players who have the equips with current costs(they did not get there gear recently) well over 500 dollars or a full years worth of play for events and luck a lot less time than the average joe to farm items in general. These players who I have zero problem with set the bar  and can solo any drop with ease , other players need groups or a large investment into game to get near there success rate. For a game over ten years old to have that much money pumped into it , it could at least reward players with the same chance as soloing in a group because the gap is just so big at the minute. "Hey guys let's hunt for item X you get 1st drop then me and then you and lastly you" this could take these guys in current play if they aren't geared to top level way longer then if a top gear player soloed x4 drops, let these guys play together with there own chance but together ? I see the older players saying they don't care as much about items and it's more of a social thing but they are the ones fighting this idea the hardest and also it's a opt in system so if they want classic it's still gonna be there and if people abuse the system in organised group hunting then they will lower the market themselves for items but items with added stats will hold value the same so no one will loose any of there investment into game. I can't see a reason other than change is bad for us not at least to try this in the downtime between summer and triforce as to not cause any issues if any arise although the obvious is  the organised team farming of valuable items

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1P: 100% DAR
2P: 82% DAR
3P: 67% DAR
4P: 54% DAR

Would these rates be too op? Even 45 or 50 would be cool  at 4p. Not that anyone asked me.  Thanks to the staff for bringing this system here, I hope there can be a slight bump in the rate:onion121:. But it's awesome that it's here either way.

Edited by under9000
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@misnombre I would compare it to this kinds of games too, the whole D&D thing was not meant to be a direct comparison, just a way to talk about general concepts of multiplayer gaming.


@magictrick I didn't actually say the picture shows more items in multiplayer, idk why you are saying I did. The D&D part was just a literary tool to talk about multiplayer game design, it's not meant to be taken as a comparison.
I think ROCT is not the exception, that most hunts in the game are better tackled with more people, whether it's any of the 9 ep1/2/4 max attack 4 quests, Max S / DMD, Phantasmal World 3 / 4 full runs, Path to Salvation, Simulator 2.0, Mine's Offensive, Forest Offensive simulator, Lost Master Blaster, Lost Son Hopkins, Gal da Val's Darkness, Revisiting Darkness, World of Illusion, Lost Devil Scepter, Lost Chaos Calibur, Power Plant Plight, even some of the regular quests like ep 4 mop up 3 or war of limits 5, or lost soul blade mines2, or some endless nightmare quests can be really nice to have a team to help deal with some of the spawns. Nearly every single best hunt in the game is in extremely difficult quests where having a team helps out quite a bit. Anything can technically be soloed, even with enough skill you can run ROCT solo too, it's been done before, and long before we had many of the ultima items we have now, but that's not really the point, doing it with a team helps out much more with all the other benefits to having multiple people in the party that I spoke of.
Also, now the 90% isn't just the whole server, it's only the 'serious' people? Even then it's a farfetched number, with even just one group of 'serious' players running together, then you would need to count half of the server(4 out of 40) as 'serious' players to reach 90%, and I can think of more than 4 'serious' players that are doing multi runs.
As for item greed outweighing the other benefits, it seems odd to call me naive for not thinking that, when I literally stated as much myself. There also isn't a particular need to force multi onto people; if someone wants to play solo there are plenty of legitimate reasons to do so (whether it be challenging oneself, not having to rely on other people, bad internet/computer, just plain antisocial and don't want to be around others, or whatever other reason) and it's not on any of us to tell them their kind of fun is wrong.
It's not like I don't want change either, I stated earlier that I am receptive to anyone wanting to argue for easier item rates in general (this event in particular isn't really that bad at all, but some other event and non-event items are pretty bad *cough*mastersword*cough*). If for some people the item greed is outweighing any other incentives for doing multiplayer already, that is why I brought up the difference between 'enough' stuff and just plain 'more' stuff. I just think that if the issue is not getting 'enough' stuff to satisfy people, that is something that is fixed with overall rate tweaks, event redesign, more minievents, and other such things, and not by just making an entirely new dropstyle brokenly overpowered.

@sologuy It's not so much a change is bad issue, but about what kind of changes are wanted and how to implement them well, and I don't think doing it by making a new dropstyle and making it way better to the point of it being silly not to use it even if you are just hunting for 1 person in that group is the way to go about it.

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31 minutes ago, under9000 said:

1P: 100% DAR
2P: 82% DAR
3P: 67% DAR
4P: 54% DAR

Would these rates be too op? Even 45 or 50 would be cool  at 4p. Not that anyone asked me.  Thanks to the staff for bringing this system here, I hope there can be a slight bump in the rate:onion121:. But it's awesome that it's here either way.

Can we please get these numbers or maybe a bit better? With this, the game would only punish people for playing multiplayer a little, so that means many players would be willing to tolerate a few less items in order to have more fun thanks to playing with others. In other words, instead of solo being 4x better than multiplayer, it would only be around 2x better. If players manage to have excellent teamwork and clear quests really fast, they might even be able to reach a point where the multiplayer penalty is very small.

Overall, it would likely mean less items dropping for the server compared to right now. "Worst" case scenario, items would drop at about the same rate as they do now. If you understand the situation and the math, there is just no good reason to be against this. If multiplayer can become worth playing on Ultima, the playerbase will grow and be happier.

Edited by Midori
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@Fyrewolf5

Some of the quests you listed are indeed hard to solo, but that doesn't mean you can't hunt your items in easier quests. For example, if someone wants Lame D'Argent and they are too weak to solo MA4DMD, they can solo Max Attack C instead. This player would be more likely to find his item by soloing Max C than doing DMD with others, because there is currently a massive penalty for multiplayer. You are looking at this problem in the wrong way to begin with. It's not about clearing quests; it's about finding items. Another example would be myself wanting CB from this event. I am too weak to solo ROCT, but I can solo Weather Effects. According to the math, a 4 player run of ROCT would have to be faster than 17 minutes in order to surpass Weather Effects solo.

And calling it "item greed" is just silly. The main reason most people play this game is to find items. If one method for finding items is 4x better than another method, it only makes all the sense in the world for the players to choose the vastly superior method. I wouldn't call that greed, but rather intelligence. If Ryu was 4x better than Ken in Street Fighter II, would you call the players who picked Ryu "try hards" or something similar? Don't be ridiculous.

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2 minutes ago, Midori said:

@Fyrewolf5

Some of the quests you listed are indeed hard to solo, but that doesn't mean you can't hunt your items in easier quests. For example, if someone wants Lame D'Argent and they are too weak to solo MA4DMD, they can solo Max Attack C instead. This player would be more likely to find his item by soloing Max C than doing DMD with others, because there is currently a massive penalty for multiplayer. You are looking at this problem in the wrong way to begin with. It's not about clearing quests; it's about finding items. Another example would be myself wanting CB from this event. I am too weak to solo ROCT, but I can solo Weather Effects. According to the math, a 4 player run of ROCT would have to be faster than 17 minutes in order to surpass Weather Effects solo.

And calling it "item greed" is just silly. The main reason most people play this game is to find items. If one method for finding items is 4x better than another method, it only makes all the sense in the world for the players to choose the vastly superior method. I wouldn't call that greed, but rather intelligence. If Ryu was 4x better than Ken in Street Fighter II, would you call the players who picked Ryu "try hards" or something similar? Don't be ridiculous.

Taking the entirety of multiplayer and reducing it solely to items (which as I explained is not even one of the primary driving forces of multiplayer gaming), and then using this non-primary factor as the basis for saying that solo is favored over multiplayer is reductionist to the point of fallacy. I only used the term 'item greed' to reference magictrick's usage of the phrase 'greed for items'. Also, isn't your standard of soloing with 6 accounts counting for anything in your math? If you do 6x WE runs, or even 2-3x, on multiple accounts at the same time, then your flawed math would require speeds faster than the physical walking distance of the quest. Even if we had the ephinea dar, you would still solo with multiple accounts because for you, the only problem is the 'more' items you could get solo (and not that you don't get 'enough' items while reaping all the other benefits of multiplayer), to which there is no solution. You would still go for the thing you think is superior, which, as you admit, would still be solo in your warped view. Don't be ridiculous.

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@Fyrewolf5

This is about the math of the game, not me personally. Regardless of what I think or do, the current game heavily favors solo over multiplayer for items. But if you want know about what I would personally do, I can tell you. If we had the same DAR as Ephinea, instead of doing only solo, I would do both solo and multiplayer depending on how I felt, what items I wanted, what other players were doing, etc. I would be OK with a few less items in order to play multiplayer, because multiplayer is more fun for me.

And now seems like a good time to mention this. There is currently a solution in place to help prevent one person from using multiple accounts to get items faster from the new drop system. Basically, the new drop system gives you 1 item per computer, not player. So if one player uses 4 accounts on the same computer, they will only get 1 item. In other words, you can't exploit the new drop system that easily. So that means if the DAR gets increased, it could actually make multiplayer worth playing compared to solo, for most of the items in the game.

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44 minutes ago, Midori said:

@Fyrewolf5

This is about the math of the game, not me personally. Regardless of what I think or do, the current game heavily favors solo over multiplayer for items. But if you want know about what I would personally do, I can tell you. If we had the same DAR as Ephinea, instead of doing only solo, I would do both solo and multiplayer depending on how I felt, what items I wanted, what other players were doing, etc. I would be OK with a few less items in order to play multiplayer, because multiplayer is more fun for me.

And now seems like a good time to mention this. There is currently a solution in place to help prevent one person from using multiple accounts to get items faster from the new drop system. Basically, the new drop system gives you 1 item per computer, not player. So if one player uses 4 accounts on the same computer, they will only get 1 item. In other words, you can't exploit the new drop system that easily. So that means if the DAR gets increased, it could actually make multiplayer worth playing compared to solo, for most of the items in the game.

That doesn't solve problems with the system, it only limits some abuse of it with multiple clients (which would still be possible to set up to do anyway, there are ways). It doesn't solve other issues like how it punishes you from helping other people. If the rates are so high that it would be silly not to use it, then actually helping out other players becomes very difficult. You can't split up and tackle different rooms when quests make this possible, because you have to go back and check the other room for drops the other players can't see; even in the same room if you are tackling enemies on the side by the exit, you have to turn around and run back to start of the room to make sure you see the drops. You can't help someone farm an item without the possibility of stealing their banner if it doesn't drop on their screen (this sort of thing isn't just a problem for one item hunts even, people may be doing the same quest but each want a different item for it and agree that player 1 gets x item if it drops and player 2 gets y item if it drops i.e. idc about getting another lame d'argent but I do need another v502 and like to have it if it drops; note: neither has a banner it's just a simple example of hunting more than 1 item at once). If it doesn't have a banner then it also enables people to do some shady things like agree to such an example, and then just keep a v502 if it drops on their screen anyway while claiming it's just a v101 instead. It's not something so simple as 'it could actually make multiplyer worth playing', it causes a lot of other issues and actually punishes you for helping others, and again, if the rates are so much greater than the regular system it does not matter if it's opt in, if the dar was like that it would be silly not to use it(a choice that is no real choice at all) that forces you to accept being punished for helping others. While I do think individual drops is a better system overall when a game is designed for it in the first place, it's not the same when you force it into a game that is not designed for it and have to continue to balance it alongside the original system; you cannot do the levels of things you are asking for in this kind of situation.  Even then, I highly doubt you would do multiplayer with that kind of dar; if that were true then you wouldn't talking about using 6 accounts to solo for items like you do, as even just 1 client would be far above that benchmark, and 3 clients more than a full order of magnitude over in your view.

Edited by Fyrewolf5
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@Fyrewolf5

That was really hard to try to understand. Just about everything you said is simply incorrect or just crazy and makes no sense. Are you even talking about the same game as me?

Sure, multi client abuse would still be possible, but at least it's harder to do. That's a good thing, right? If someone would have to use 4 computers and 4 separate controllers just to get more items, that would be a lot of extra hassle for very little gain. All of the extra time and effort it would take to manage 4 characters would arguably cancel out any potential gain. Just like how we have software in place to prevent players from hacking/cheating, just because there are ways around it, doesn't mean we should give up altogether on trying to stop things that hurt the game. If this solution for multi account abuse ends up not being good enough, we can figure out a new/better solution. It would be nice if you had actual desire to improve the game.

You seriously are making the argument that raising the DAR will make it harder to help others? Wow. That blows my mind. Right now, the best way to help someone find an item would be for the two of you to solo in separate rooms. It's hard to convince a strong player to help a weak player in the same party, because there is no benefit for them. If the multiplayer DAR was higher, you might be able to actually play in the same party, and have both players get some benefit. The stuff you said about having to check the current room and other rooms for items you missed is either a non-issue or an extremely minor one, and hardly comes anywhere close to canceling out the large, real benefits of having higher DAR with the new drop system. If that's the best counter argument you can come up with, you are grasping at straws.

The whole "stealing the banner" thing is just ridiculous to begin with. First off, it's impossible to do. Thanks to the new system making the drops individual, what drops is yours only. You can't steal something that is yours to begin with. Now if you were using the new system with someone and helping them find a specific rare, and it drops for you, you can choose to give it to them if you want. It's your item, so if you want to give it them, that's totally fine and your choice. If they are upset because they didn't have their name on the banner for it, you should probably find a more grateful person to help next time, because that is very rude and crazy behavior.

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