Level 40+ Adena Issue - My experience

[FatHips]

20 minutes ago, Vlademere said:

Bows have always consumed a ton of SS. Most archers on retail only used a bow for pvp and leveled up with a dagger for the very reasons you are spending 5k CSS an hour. Maybe it could be 2kCSS an hour with a dagger for the same XP and adena.

Adena rates are not that great, but they aren't that horrible either. Consider your playstyle. The fact that you even have millions of adena to buy CG gear says something about the ability you have to farm.

I had a 60 PR on Bartz in C1, what you said is categorically untrue.

Not many good archers used daggers beyond level 45 back then, and the ones who did were part of mixed melee parties to take advantage of overpowered VR back in the day, daggers spend even more money on shots, especially without stabs or masteries.   Remember parties were very whacky back then as nobody knew anything, and healing was very weak compared to VR.

Plus, most people used no shots in those dagger-using parties, so it's kinda irrelevant as a comparison.

[ArkCer0]

I believe the problem lies in the Economics of Lineage 2 vs the Business model for Lineage 2 Classic

Obviously NCsoft it's a Company that makes a game as a business model and expects it to profit so its normal to expect some form of mechanism that "suggest" to the player to spend some money on the game either to advance or to be on top. 

Now depending on the number of expected players the business model will differ and invite a more broad base of players to spend money on the game.

The problem is that the economics of the lineage 2 is not been considered, or at least all the variables. 

As it is now, it looks that the Business model is expecting that players buy Soulshots out of L2 Store, and this looks very lucrative but it's not considering many things.

As in all statistical evaluations, probability theory dictates that the evaluated variable will behave in a Normal DIstribution or Gauss Bell distribution, so only the top 5% will be able to spend the top amount of money available as an option to spend (been that spending about 5$ a day in Soulshots) if we have a total of around 5000 characters logged on a server, assuming that 80% are boxed accounts (because the game is also forcing you to make multiple characters to be even and progress up until lvl 40, beyond its broken) that would be a player base of around 2000 players per server, and only 100 of those players would be able to spend 5 USD every day in Soulshots. 

Is this profitable? I think not.

Then you have to consider the Economics of Lineage 2, in order to have a healthy economy you need a critical mass moving through the server generating adena and spending it, that would need to expand as the game progresses. This critical mass needs to be proportional to the rates of the server for it to be Playable (playable is the keyword of this Post). Things like mats and key parts been dropped so people can craft, Adena been dropped so people can buy what it needs, and things to be sold from players to other players and so on.

What I'm trying to say is:

You cannot expect that the 5% of the server who is able to make profit (because they are the only ones to be able to buy Soulshots every day) sustains the entire economics of the server, and that's why the server its stuck in 20 - 40s even tho the majority of the people playing this game is a very hardcore OLD player base that has played the game for years. (you don't seriously think that someone young that has not played this game since 2005 is playing it with so many good options out there)

Also, you obviously recognize that there is a problem when you fix adena rates for 20 to 40, and put an event that puts in the market a lot of TOP D weapons. 

We are a month in the server and it takes 4 days for the only 3 dwarves selling crystals C to recycle the amount of C crystals done from a single dual sor*sor. If that's not a stuck server, I don't know what it is.

Then you have the VIP Broken model. Any good player knows that EXPing FAST its a recipe for disaster without the proper economy supporting it. Getting 10 20 30 50 60% more XP but the same amount of money means you will get faster to a level where you can't kill the 1 mob with the same gear without been killed by the said mob. (imagine a lvl 55 with a top D grade weapon). And don't tell me you expect the drop increase would alleviate this because 1 the drops rates are very hardcore, second there is no adena in the game circulating for the drops to be sold efficiently.

Also with the fixes on the only group areas (a few), you are suggesting that people should party in order to advance, but again the same problem with XPing vs making money. When you party you get more XP and less adena that you would if you solo, again hitting the wall of i am a high lvl that cannot kill mobs that would drop money to me and even if I can the amount of money is so low that i lose money if i use soulshots and if i don't, i lose sanity. Then you neglect the solo players. Since you have the data have you considered the number of people that cannot do parties (because of an old player base with RL responsibilities and stuff), unable to play on a schedule with a group of people for a long period of time? Have you considered that this same group its the same more likely to spend money to catch up with their friends? but not if it means it will be broke and naked ingame.

Whats the other option? Make an infinite amount of 1 to 40 characters to be able to afford your C gear, but then what? one you start leveling you start losing money again?

I believe that if you add in your VIP models some adena amount increase, your business model would benefit, especially if you add it to VIP 1 also, since a broader player base would be able and willing to spend a rational amount of money monthly in getting a better QOL and gaming experience.

Also if you fix the Adena drop escalating properly your complete player base would grow even more (the old friends saying friends its fun to play ?!?!)

Lineage 2 has an extremely important piece that is the Spoiler class, that fixed a lot of issues but since VIP doesn't consider it, the drop rate of Spoil its worse than a normal drop of a VIP4 in some cases. The Spoiling system its CENTRAL to the healthy economy of lineage 2 and its not been considered in your business model.

Right now killing with a Very slow weapon (akt long bow) using no shots its comparable to torture.

Also consider that 90 % of the people here came here to PVP properly, that's what has kept alive lineage 2 for so many years and we all want to get there properly. 

I would like to elaborate more but i need to leave. 

Looking forward to have a fruitful discution about all this

 

Thank you 

[BlitzBlade]

Hearing from a community manager that the higher ups are not making it a top priority to fix adena/drop rate gains for the areas that are still for all intents and purposes, BUGGED, really scares me as it seems like the people at the top calling the shots have maybe never even played their own game, let alone even investigate the issues being presented. 

If no one was crying for help would the few changes to adena/drop rates for a small portion of the game have even happened?

[Gazob1]

My current game plan is to make a few different squads and leaving all of them at lv40ish. I've made a summoner for myself with an illusion that it would help me through solo PvE, the gameplay itself is fun because I love to micro summons in any game I play. I'm focusing on a variety of characters for myself, I have a stable progression with drops and adena, but never past 40ish, I see no point rushing or trying to exp in higher level areas knowing that the rewards are awful. I see myself enjoying this low and mid grade until the server is stable enough. Or else I should keep doing this forever to pay the bills for any character that is above lv45 or so, this design is clearly messed up. I do hope the server gets more pleasant to play, I dump the same amount of my time and effort, the only difference is that I chose to be lower level with multiple characters because that's where I found best profitable for me, specially because I interact and enjoy economy a lot in any game I play. Playing past 40 and starving to do ANYTHING isn't fun or even makes sense in general, it just doesn't. Hardcore is supposed to be "hard", "slow", but you should defintiely notice a progression line, you shouldn't see yourself wasting way too much to get nothing. And why the events to inflate the market? Wouldn't it be so much better if the event gave away gear pieces for faster crafting instead of full top D weapons? Insane.