Has DG Made HeRO Too Easy? Does it Need a Nerf?

[NihonNights]

Has DG Made HeRO Too Easy? Does it Need a Nerf?

It's not that DG is too easy, it's that everything else is too hard, relative to it. We have to think about a more broader context than one map.

The problem with raising party EXP rates is that it automatically disadvantages a solo style of play, and classes that are more solo oriented, like Agi Knight, Rogues and Grimtooth Sins. It is not just DG it is partying in general. It invalidates entire builds. When people level significantly faster in one particular way, it incentivizes people to adapt their character to that way. Those incentives have corresponding constraints. They mean that people have fewer builds that are good for soloing. Which means that less and less people are spread out in other non-party maps, which means fewer drops from those maps. Which means a greater scarcity of things like Skeleton Worker cards, etc.

A greater scarcity would normally solve itself: as things are harder to find, their price goes up. But heRO's economy is so rigid that it barely responds to supply and demand, cards and gear have a constant price and rarely change regardless of the actual reality of how people's behavior is influencing what's rare and what's not so rare.

I am convinced that most of these cards that people want end up originating from OCAs on heRO and not actually hunted. Would be interesting if there was a way to cull statistics about that.

So, if the GM's want to change something, they need to be fully aware that what they incentivize is going to constrain some other behavior. If we incentivize party leveling, it comes at the expense of solo leveling, and on a server with a small active population, a lot of people are stuck soloing, so those with "friends" level about 5 times as fast as they do given the exact same amount of time. Those slow levelers are doing way more work whilst all the while doing a more valuable service to the server economy by supplying their drops from varied areas instead of the 1billionth LBW or 10milllionth Cursed Hand. Soloers work harder but aren't rewarded for that. Eco stagnates because of this.

It is important to also be aware that the game, sans GM tinkering, already has particular incentives. For example, you can level quickly in Thor, but the gear requirement is relatively steep. The smaller the party, the steeper the requirement. DG doesn't even require a bathory armor. I have lured there as a Rogue without it on several occasions. Even easier if you have endure. You need an adventurers hat or peco and that's it.

Other maps can become more competitive if there were a "Map of the week/month" every 2 or 4 weeks that offers bonus EXP. Certain maps could be excluded from ever getting on that list, (Thor 1 and 3, DG, Necros, ID3) and others would be promoted that are more feasible (Medusa, Anolian, Majos, Juperos, etc) and for soloers "a mob of the week" could be interesting, incentivizing hunting/lvling in a different place. We can already see people adapting to the Alarm Map having extra spawns and exp. This changes player behavior, and that is not a bad thing. Of course, these ideas may also have corresponding negative constraints, so it is important to study which maps would be made available for "Map of the week".

Anyway, this post is long enough as it is; stopping for now.