Zeny sink with increased rates mixed in

[Draco]

So I know people like experience rates going up for short periods of time to level but not ones that last forever and a day or it makes it imbalanced. I also know GMs, and a lot of players, like the idea of zeny sinks. So here is the idea, an npc that by the population donating into it gives them an hour worth of higher rates. Now the amount of zeny can differ depending on the option the GMs choose.

1. x amount of zeny donated gives you random rates the next hour so randomzed from 6-10x or whatever.
2. At a certain time in different times of the day for about 10 minutes players will get the chance to donate zeny into the npc and depending on the amount could give them 6x, 7x,8x,9x,or 10x rates.
3. Any other options people can think of for something like this.

Thoughts? Ideas? Personally I've seen it work and I feel it could work.

[mahawirasd]

1. balancing the 'cost' (in zeny) vs the possible 'rewards' (increased drops) is really REALLY hard - near impossible if i may say so... I could save up some zeny, crank the rates, and open BBs to get mvp cards/drops... although as a player i'd love to be able to do that, i don't think that possibility would serve the server

2. i can't envision changing rates temporarily as an "easily scriptable" thing to do

3. every year we get a special week where we get increased rates at 7x - the options you are putting forward will make that special week appear less special.


W

[Shinigami l0_0l]

i guess its easier to make field manual and bubble gum vendor on certain time/place... but it would increase the gap between the rich and poor people in the server

[Draco]

I think you're confusing a bit of the rates also including drops there. Also as you can tell from previous weeks where they've had millions of raised rates as an apology of some sort within hours of the incident which means it was an easy change in the coding so it would be a simple npc code as well.

Also the week with the solid 7x rates I could see as still being special only because it is a straight 7x rates for free you can look forward to over one that you have to work together with lots of people to get to x amount of zeny just to get a good rate of some sort for an hour which if you look around online the code can be found for free everywhere I am pretty sure. Not to mention people would still be stingy with their zeny so it wouldn't be a every hour thing. There are many more servers out there with more zeny in the economy than there should be and they maybe get the hourly rates once a week because its so much zeny to hit the rate.

[Former-GM-Chaucer]

I haven't gotten an answer from Pandora for an absolute answer about this; but I'm leaning a strong no on this. For a few reasons.

1- Each time rates are changed it requires the server to reboot, which means kicking everyone off and making them relog. As fun as it is to go through Prontera and force kick all of the venders this is a timely process and is annoying to go through for the GM team. This makes rate changing not easy to script and not just a button that we can switch on and off whenever we feel like it. Also, for players it's one of the draws of heRO is that we're a stable server with very little down time, we like to keep it that way.

2- It is impossible to change rates just for individual people;??it's either the whole server or nothing.

3- Those rates, to me, sound very, very high. I might be wrong on this, I don't remember all of the times that this has happened, but rates very rarely get increased. The typical times are for the birthday event and if the server is ever down for an extended period of time due to an error on our side, and even then the rates never go up to 10x.

4- Assuming that this idea includes drop rates, the above concerns are valid. Save up a few hundred BB's, donate X mil/bil zenny, farm MvP's as fast and furious as possible with your friends while the drop rates are still increased. Most veteran players would not use the increased rates to level up that 12th character that they've been sitting around on for the past year doing nothing with, they're going to use it to try to get those items and cards that are now dropping at twice the normal rate to make their veteran characters even more powerful.

5- I just don't like this idea. If this was ever considered by the GM team, I would push as hard as possible for the change to cost a player at least 1bil zenny and make it only last for only 12 hours, and do something evil like changing the branch rooms to make it so you could no longer break branches on them. It is too easy to abuse by end game players, and the reward is much more worth it for veterans than it is ever for our newer players. Also, I like the idea of randomized exp rates, but I would be evil and support something along the following 'randomized' rates to make it so that there is a good chance that your 1bil zenny would random a rate that would actually cause worse or the same rates than what we currently have.

1x - 5 % of the random (real rates to make you feel thankful for our normal ones)
2x??- 10 % of the random
3x - 15 % of the random
4x- 20 % of the random
5x- 30 % of the random
6x- 10 % of the random
7x- 10 % of the random

Thank you for your suggestion, but sorry that the answer on this one is no.

[Ellie]

Number 1 isn't true. Rates are frequently changed forwards and back when players are online.



Edit from Chaucer:

Balls, I meant to quote but instead I edited your post. This is just a bad Monday for me, I'm sorry that I deleted your post from what I wanted to say. Mainly I just wanted to say thanks for the correction, and now I need to say thanks for the correction and sorry I deleted your post, I'm just having a bad case of the Mondays.





Ellie TLRD; reedit:
Server is at at least 6x for a good portion of the year anyway, due to the 5 major seasonal events generally ending up having rates up for anywhere from 2 weeks to almost 2 months (hi2u, vday and easter).
That's not even including minor seasonal events and for random downtime, etc.
The server doesn't need even more upped rates on top of that. If it gets it, we won't be a 5x server any more. It'll likely push us over into being at least 6x for the majority of the year.

[The Legendary Joe]

2- It is impossible to change rates just for individual people;??it's either the whole server or nothing.

It would be possible to make items to boost the exp and drop rates for individual persons tho. Official items like battle Field manuals (for exp increase) and Bubble Gum (for drop rate increases) already exist.??Could just set the % increase so its pretty much like a complete increase in the server's rates.

I do like the random rates suggestion Chaucer had.??Maybe that Zenny sink dude would be like an eviler version of the hatter. All of his drop/exp changing items look the same, but??you have no clue what you're getting until you use it.?

"Whoo! Here I am 98/69??Pure forger WS Leeching in Gorge, the lure's got pretty much the entire map and our wizard and priests, and profs pretty much destroy everything effortlessly, Lets pop one of those magic candies that creepy begger gave me so I can get 7x exp and drops~!"
*exp and drop get lowered to an equivalent of a 1/2x server*




?And even then, you wouldn't be guaranteed to get one of those because you'd have 2000 other things that you could randomly get out of him for??Giving him so much money.

[Weapon]

I like that this server is a low-rate. It (usually) makes you put in work to get what you have. That being said, I also like some of the recent changes that make it easier for people to level their characters to a respectable state (i.e., buddy beanie giving you durability that you normally wouldn't have until many levels later AND giving you a small bump of EXP too.)

The only way I could see this working was if you paid a ton of zeny and in return received a field manual, boosting EXP alone.

--> Add Field Manual packages to fairy auction as regularly auctioned items.

[Draco]

Guys I think some of you did not read what I had to say on the rates. Not once did I say it was for drop. I stated for exp. When I listed the types of rates you made it sound like I was saying those should be the full range. I never said that those were just examples. Also for those who say this isn't scriptable or doable, it is scriptable it is doable and I have seen it work on another server I used to be a GM of. I was there when they implimented it and I saw that it helped the economy there greatly. Not only that it would be a thing that would be up and then back down in an hour so it can't really be abused all that much. A usual party anywhere will be longer than an hour long if done right and they won't just take off as soon as the rates change so they won't get the full exp rates to begin with. Yes there are items out there that give you boosted exp such as buddy beanie but that only goes so far. If you are let's say a level 98/69 forger that boosted to 6 or 7x rates that players come together to help donate to would help him greatly and the others out there. When I say a lot of money I would expect a bil or more for it most likely since there is so much zeny in the server. I would never expect it to be a mil or even 20 mil because that would be too easy for someone to pay for. It's a zeny Sino it needs to require a lot of zeny to get out of it.

[mahawirasd]

well, if it is just exp alone, then making a zeny sink out of EXP manuals like what weapon is getting at should be an easier way to do it, no?


W