It seems that the issue here is that higher level characters are farming lower level nameds for some piece of situational gear they feel they need. I wouldn't want them to not be able to loot this item simply because they leveled up and didn't realize they needed that particular item. By the same token, I wouldnt want them to farm a camp and keep level appropriate characters from being able to have their shot. By no means would I want to see them farming these items for days simply to sell at the auction house either.
You can't simply have the item drop off of mutilple static or dynamic placeholders or mobs because then the higher level character would farm the whole area instead of just the named, making it even tougher for the level appropriate characters in the zone.
It is a tough situation, but perhaps the devs could somehow make the item "locked" if it falls on the trivial loot table for higher level characters and "unlocked" if it is looted by a level appropriate character. They could then sell keys on a NPC vendor for gold or plat that the higher level character could use to unlock the item, but it also makes it lore or no drop. The keys would need to possibly have different tiers, but each one would cost more than that item could possibly sell for at the auction house. This would take the money making aspect out of higher level characters farming, but still allow them to get their loot. Also, the level apropriate characters could only farm that item for a limited time because they would be getting experience from each kill and eventually out-level the item so that it would be "locked" for them too.
Doesn't seem like there is an easy solution to this one, but maybe it's an option.
Obliquity said:Riahuf22 said:
Make it so players can only be bound in the cities.
Yes if you could do this tht would work, not saying what you said was a bad idea cuase making things lore is a great way to stop it from being prema camped by one player, just would like to have something else in play to make it to where everything runs smoothly and stops people from camping a huge section of a zone or a particular spot in a zone just so they can drop a chunk of cash in there pocket and repeat again.
EQ you would see it once players reached max level they would go farm/camp for twink items, profit or just for something to do.
Still cost time tho.
Having plenty of content plus good itemization will help : )
I see where you are coming from, Obliquity, but you do not risk time; you spend it. What you are describing is an entitlement to something your character is past needing for their level because you spent the time. I twinked, she twinked, he twinked, we all twinked and we camped for it sometimes. We know the situation very well. What is not clear is whether we should twink, given that there may be a benefit to starting a new character anyway. And for the record, I was never bored enough to go pharm. I have always found it to be a boring chore.
Above, I brought up the whole "taking the risk out of the reward" scenario and it is being largely ignored in favor of suggestions to keep the soup line open. In order to afford a Fishbone Earring, I would have to either go kill Hadden or go pharm items that I don't need in order to sell or trade them for one. If I wanted an FBSS or an AoN, I would have to pharm things lower than my level by myself (if I were in a group, I would likely never earn enough, unless I start boxing) for hours upon hours instead of finding a camp that would have me, then praying to the RNG gods.
Whichever I choose, game or metagame, I have to be the right level and risk my character's well-being, as intended, or somehow come up with the 2,000 - 25,000pp to get the items we're talking about. There is a reason that there is a market for gold sellers - who are usually high level pharmers that profit off of mudflation. High-level players that are actually playing the game should have enough plat to afford an occasional nice item that someone else cannot use without resorting to pharming. They shouldn't need anything "beneath" them for situational purposes, either. For a pharmer, mowing down giants or snagging empty camps is as easy as pressing root and nuke, then bind, port, sell, gate and start again. Again, there's no risk. There are a surprisingly large amount of people who say that there is no harm, therefore, no foul and wonder loudly and often about there being no clearer alternative to get money. Perhaps that aspect of metagaming should be looked at and improved upon instead of lauding the ability to generate risk-free revenue that is a direct contributor to mudflation.
It is my belief that this is most easily done by adjusting the level of the character within zones. Barring that, having characters that have outleveled the content be unable to get anything other than a no trade quest drop from any given mob in a zone that is beneath them. That should give those who risked their character's death to acquire something they cannot use a chance to sell the item they got to a player with the money to spare so that the person who got the drop they can't use can turn around and purchase something that they can use for their level.
I'm enamored of the leveled system for items, where items have a range of usefulness for characters that gets better as you level, but stops after passing their max recommended use, compelling a player to obtain new gear - hopefully from a crafter. I think item sets push hard on pharming, as the rarer bits command insane prices, further moving mudflation along inexorably toward killing off newbies ever being able to join the community without a heaping helping of gold seller help. I experienced this in P99 and I'm happy to say that I have not seen one gold seller ad, though it is a rather small and entrenched (read: unprofitable) community for goldsellers, anyway. I want to be a greater part of it, but I simply sit back, agog when I see tens of thousands of plat changing hands over items that aren't much more than a handful of middling stats. The amount of people playing alts is low and almost every one of them is completely twinked in gear that my character didn't have, even at level 50. My characters in SOE's EQ never had that much money to throw around, because as soon as I got near 10K, I'd upgrade an item for my character that had been holding it back since level 20.
In summary, I feel that twinking and earning money without risk is detrimental to the economy. The practice of pharming devalues the money and the items you can get. I mean, how many Fishbone Earrings does a server need? And why does the price never go down, despite the amount of them found on the server? I think it is time to consider a new way to balance the economy that doesn't just sever the calcaneal (Achilles') tendon of the gold sellers, but also encourages players to treat their alts as individuals. Level-adjusting and item restrictions suck. However, it is the cleanest solution I can think of to curb the steady march of mudflation when considering the EQ model.
What of replayability? What of challenge? What of needing others for groups? Twinking and pharming are the bread and butter of gold sellers. When those people started seeing dollar signs, then everyone else started feeling like they needed to do it because those items went for ludicrous amounts of platinum. I think that no one should do it.
I feel let down by those negative experiences with EQ's archaic and exploitable spawning system that left some people thinking that it was a good and intended thing. It's as if they are listening to some bad 70s tune, like "Billy, Don't Be A Hero" or "Chevy Van" and extolling its value to today's music, when really it is because it takes them back to that time in their life when they had a smaller world view and therefore understood their place in the world. That associated memory is comforting, but it's time to evolve the system.
I don't think any developer has ever said to themselves, "Hmm. This could be exploited by a player for money and items without risk." No! They thought you'd be well beyond it, taking on something new and exciting, testing your mettle. Who goes back to exploit the younger content they experienced long ago? Unscrupulous businesses, armed services that prey upon a child's patriotism and/or socio-economic disadvantages and perverted, mid-life crisis creeps hunting for naive marks, for a start. I would submit that pharmers do, too. It's easy pickings and detrimental to the game world.
TL;DR:
If this game is modeled after EQ, then we will see people engaging content which they have long outleveled, which brings its own problems, such as mudflation and removing the risk from rewards.
Assuming it is like EQ, we will have twinking in the game, all but negating the challenge that others experience when they are new or perhaps, "purists."
EQ became pay to win long before that was ever a term, since gold sellers could twink out your character and even power level your character for real world money. It is time to take away the primary tools of gold sellers: pharming plat and pharming items.
Go play EQ P99 if you want an example of how farming and twinking and powerlevelling naturally comes about in a 'sandbox' 'open' world.
I recently played to level 58 or so. The most fun I had was following my early class quests which turned out to lead onto the epic quest. Travelled the world seeking out the adventure to follow my class calling.
Realised later on that loads of the items I had worked hard for were being farmed and sold. I had wondered at low-levels what those high-level guys were doing in the areas I was hunting (and why I was having such trouble finding the monsters I needed to kill).
Aside from people farming epic quest items, for 'normal' gear you literally never had to go seeking anything for yourself. No end of times I'd get a drop I liked while adventuring only to find a better item was for sale for a price that was very cheap indeed.
Sure you don't have to buy stuff - go adventure for it and have fun, yeah? But you quickly find yourself "gimped" as it becomes normal for everyone to have an excellent level of gear. "Normal" content becomes trivial because everyone is geared like super-heroes and if you're not you don't get invited to groups that *do* go for tough (higher-level than normally appropriate) because you die too easily.
It's a tough problem. Go back to epic fantasy fiction and you do *not* find Frodo going back and slaughtering all in Bree using the power of The Ring, Sting and his Mithril shirt so he can loot the place and buy some Elven Boots.
Maybe *everything* in RPGs should be no trade? Maybe you should *only* be able to pass things to other characters via a progeny system? It would certainly return us to the roots of why we are 'adventuring'. You hear tell of a fantastic flaming sword you decide you want? Do you farm 10 lesser swords and go trade for the flaming sword at the market? Or do you go kill the dragon that has the sword?
What's more fun?
disposalist said:Maybe *everything* in RPGs should be no trade? Maybe you should *only* be able to pass things to other characters via a progeny system? It would certainly return us to the roots of why we are 'adventuring'. You hear tell of a fantastic flaming sword you decide you want? Do you farm 10 lesser swords and go trade for the flaming sword at the market? Or do you go kill the dragon that has the sword?
What's more fun?
I will have VERY limited play time in Pantheon. Realistically I will not have time to go and kill dragons to loot uber swords. However I will have time to slowly build up cash and utilize the free market and purchase the sword. What may be more fun to you will cripple the more casual players such as myself.
Let people farm stuff. The less limits placed on the player population the better. Farming was fun and the only way to make decent cash at certain levels in EQ. Dont try to reinvent the wheel because of a bumpy road.
Why does everyone hate twinking? Twinking alone is probably responsible for half the replayability of EQ. It takes time to put yourself in the position to twink an alt, and lets not kid ourselves, time is the most valuble currency of all.
The reason gold sellers exist is because there are people who will pay for the gold they sell. In a player driven economy where a few items demand a premium price there will be people who absolutely want the item but won’t commit the time to get the item – which may include competing for the spawn. So they will buy the item. They will either farm the gold themselves to purchase the item or they will acquire the gold from someone else who has it – either by farming gold or farming items they sell for gold.
It’s pretty much safe to state that we don’t want gold sellers. It’s pretty much safe to state that pharming presents situations and instances that exacerbate problems with experiences in the game (and perhaps the game, itself) rather than resolves problems or presents opportunities. It’s also pretty much safe to state these are negatives that we would like to eliminate.
The problem, as I see it, is that in a player driven economy – which we want – gold sellers, gold farmers, and loot pharmers will be a consequence of a player driven economy – which we don’t want (gold farming by players at times to be able to afford an item is different than plain old gold farmers – although some people may see a role playing opportunity in gold farming). So, is it possible in this day and age to get what we want and not have to deal with what we don’t want?
I think there are ideas presented here that are intended to present opportunities rather than exacerbate problems – however, they also have detractors that others have pointed out. I am not sure how much effort can be put towards this issue to see any effective return. Unless the development team knows up front what items are going to create these situations – in which case if they know up front then perhaps an opportunity to address it can be done – I don’t believe this issue can be adequately addressed. It absolutely requires people to not buy (or acquire) gold that others have acquired. And while, we, on this forum can refrain from engaging in this behaviour, it can’t be said of the multitude of others that will be playing the game.
Me, I am hoping for content that reduces my chance for conflicts surrounding “pharming.” Since this is a social game and group-centric it does require content such that a group (or guild) isn’t so preoccupied with absolutely getting that one thing for one person (or a few people) in that group or guild. Content can mean many different things from encounters to items to trade skills to quests to a combination of them.
Jumbled thoughts below:
I loved my time in EQ, but I also remember the negative feels and experience that pharming created in my play-time and other aspects of the game.
Want to give props to OP and multiple repliers for providing great food for thought and ideas which can potentially alleviate some negatives.
I used to think that item binding / restrictions were a bad thing, but cannot deny that they are tools which can limit the negatives from pharming. Being older, and the more I think about it, the more I feel that we should have systems in place to discourage pharming.
I am a casual player, but I should not be able to afford that rare epic item (a very decent, maybe even almost comparable item), but not the epic item itself (not referring to epic quest items here).
How do you choose which items should be tradable, which should be bind-on-pickup, which should be locked to the group that killed it. Should an item be tradable the first time it drops on a character, and then become non-tradable for all future drops?
Tough decisions for the devs / designers, but I really hope they get involved in the discussions, and that they think of something to dissuade pharming.
Just because we are used to twinking and farming for gear, and the advantages this had for our in-game income or alt twinking, does not mean that these things should stay as they were.
If they were removed, yes it would be harder than it could be for my alts, or desires to afford that item I really want, but I don't think it would take away from the community. Whereas, pharming does affect community and the game-play experience of others. Do we want the game to be advantageous for us, or should it be perhaps harder (not as convenient), but better for the community?