Future Events; The Servers in General

[Infami]

I realize that all the attention is still on classic, but we are now two for two on the worst events ive seen in the two ish years of being back to the game. We had a shirt event that was the single most horribly over-priced, underwhelming and too long of a wait for it. Honestly this was pretty much a slap in the face. Then we have this bracelet event (which for me, as a very well geared DD is fine) that is so unrealistic for support classes I dont actually know a support toon that has a +ed bracelet. Im not saying these things to flame the devs, just making observations. The worst part of this in my opinion, is that im also playing classic at the same time. The responsiveness of the GM/Dev team over there versus over here is night and day. The community engages (not always in a constructive way) the Dev team, and actual changes are made. In the two years ive been back its been consistent with everyone complaining about the same things and no changes/resolutions that are significant. So my main curiosity is this; Undeniably the population of Live T A N K E D at the release of classic, you need only log in. Using just the two top clans as a measurement for the overall server, Nova pre-classic was regularly fielding 6-7 parties during a siege, MS 15-18. Nova can barely put 3 parties together, and MS struggles to put 8 together, so roughly 50-60% drop in active population. Im inclined to believe the general population is basically in the same state. Then that is followed as stated above by two extremely poorly executed/thought out events. Is the dev team considering making any actual changes to the events/live servers/effort put into it or are we basically just hanging on until the eventual merge of Chronos and Naia, and then the shutdown of "live" all together, making classic the "new live". Because thats what it looks like the strategy is right now. Im not trying to be a conspiracy theorist bleep, but im going off whats in front of me. I WANT to be wrong here because I actually enjoy both versions but the disparity in service on the servers is striking. So you plan on making some improvements on live to bring players back, maybe actually finally looking at some of the horrible balance issues, actually releasing events that are fun, fair, and beneficial to the game, the economy, and content? Do you guys (the Devs) see these things (even in part if you disagree with some of what ive said) as stated or do you feel that im crazy and youre going to lock the thread and tell me to proverbially play in traffic? @Hime @Juji any thoughts?

[Infami]

I realized that I referenced some outstanding balance issues without providing any examples. So just a quick list off the tops of my head. 
1) This recent shirt event. Minimum buy-in is like 230$ for a 1% chance to end up with anything worthwhile. Relative to how many participated in the last cloak event this was a complete failure as the shirt event was entirely too "hard" and its been stated in countless threads over time how imbalanced it is to not have this item and compete against people who do. 
2) Structure of the brooch gem events. In other regions you can pick which gem you are buying instead of the random pack you have to buy here. Due to the horrible rates this ends up pricing 90% of the population out of even having a full set of level 4 gems.
3) The brooch skills themselves need to be looked at. Other regions have the Topaz/Tanzanite timer at 3 minutes I believe? This isnt a perfect solution but its WAY better than we have here. 
4) Lack of viability of most of the classes in pvp. You basically see Archers, and Nukers as 85% of DDs in PVP. I know you have less control over this than alot of the other things but its worth stating.
5) Free-to-win events. This bracelet event was SOOOO close to being a perfect event if it didnt exclude 75% of players lol.  
Im sure others could add tons more to this.
 

[Fantasy]

11 minutes ago, Infami said:

...Im sure others could add tons more to this.
 

Yes, disable the auto-macro function, or add it to the subscription package, so you can generate income in a smooth way.

[SleepingPower]

48 minutes ago, Infami said:

1) This recent shirt event. Minimum buy-in is like 230$ for a 1% chance to end up with anything worthwhile.

You take it wrong.

There is no shirt or cloak events.

They don't sell products,

They sell gambling.

So if you join the event and have pleasure gambling a lot you have small chance to obtain an item as reward if you need it or not does not matter as primary goal is to provide you pleasure of gambling.

[OmenOfSteel]

Basically OP is right with everything.

4 hours ago, Infami said:

Im sure others could add tons more to this.
 

What we need is a more newbie-friendly game so that ppl that surely will come in over the next time, when the wall hits them on classic or when they realize classic is boring and slow as hell, actually stay here on Live.

Also we need more drops from daily instances. The Savior Mask and Guard Agathion fragments are very good improvements for free players to get some adena. Also add some more other/normal/old stuff to the droplist, instead those useless modify-scrolls.

Lower prices on ALL L2Store items: Ppl compare to EU or RU servers and get mad over NCWest pricing. Understandable and easy to fix. Do it !

Most important: No new exclusive P2W items!!!! Each new item (the horrendous shirt for example) is killing a part of your community! I said it many times, I'll say it again: Do NOT bring new exclusive L2Store items more than max. twice a year! Everything else is overkill...

Recycle old P2W items (we have plenty) for lower prices or with better success rates so the gap can be closed and ppl can catch up.
 

But there's also something positive: The new Oriana Event is close to perfect! Everyone gets a little something for free, some ppl get the jackpot. Great event 10/10, very welcome.

[Artesis]

@Hime @Juji  :D? they do not read the LIVE forum, they have lots of work with Classic. Classic has much higher earnings, how LIVE.

A official forum here is for nothing , only a place to cry and threads without official reply.

My prognosis - for 9-12 months  = merger NAIA+Chronos - 4k - 4,5k Player - 1 new update (2000 player in same time max. + 2500 box - 60% bot/macro/seller)

                        for 12-18 mounts = 2,7-3k playes - last new update

                        for 24 mounts = end L2 (sales 40% how now = without meaning for NC soft)

[xer0ff]

Just a quick one, If there was ever a merger again with 1 final server, that would rule out Dimensional Sieges etc?

[Helv]

6 hours ago, OmenOfSteel said:

But there's also something positive: The new Oriana Event is close to perfect! Everyone gets a little something for free, some ppl get the jackpot. Great event 10/10, very welcome.

I hate it, it is far from perfect. As a wynn I did not have enough dps to finish it even after it was made easier. As a player who created her character in 2006 I feel this event was a joke on me. I even considered finally quitting after it was introduced as it seems to me it is going to be worse and worse. I stick around for noe doing kartia and solo factions while semi-afk, but other than that there is nothing else for me to do here. No one takes wynns in their parties.

My suggestion for improvement is to allow players to change their main class or #fixwynns - all those new pay to win items give great boost to dds, but give little or close to nothing to wynns.

[RaistlinIII]

6 hours ago, OmenOfSteel said:

Basically OP is right with everything.

What we need is a more newbie-friendly game so that ppl that surely will come in over the next time, when the wall hits them on classic or when they realize classic is boring and slow as hell, actually stay here on Live.

Also we need more drops from daily instances. The Savior Mask and Guard Agathion fragments are very good improvements for free players to get some adena. Also add some more other/normal/old stuff to the droplist, instead those useless modify-scrolls.

Lower prices on ALL L2Store items: Ppl compare to EU or RU servers and get mad over NCWest pricing. Understandable and easy to fix. Do it !

Most important: No new exclusive P2W items!!!! Each new item (the horrendous shirt for example) is killing a part of your community! I said it many times, I'll say it again: Do NOT bring new exclusive L2Store items more than max. twice a year! Everything else is overkill...

Recycle old P2W items (we have plenty) for lower prices or with better success rates so the gap can be closed and ppl can catch up.
 

Great ideas.  It would be amazing if NCWest actually listed to us for a change.

I especially like this:

Recycle old P2W items (we have plenty) for lower prices or with better success rates so the gap can be closed and ppl can catch up.

- especially with last three huge fiasco's: (1) Artifact Event (bring it back - much more accessible - 30-40Bil for +11 is rediculous); (2) Shirt Event (get the enchants back, much cheaper/more attainable, much higher success - - not just for the uber whales/top 5%, who have more money to spend than common sense; and (3) Merkio's Bracelet event - make it,somehow, more available to all classes, let us keep our Merkio's Marks (90% of DDs that were able to play, couldn't get through the event/get marks the first two weeks either) - the event was fun, fairly productive, but needs to be expanded for all classes some how - maybe Duo's?).   Bring this back, at something much more approaching attainable for more players - and not targeted solely for the whales/uber spenders that used to make up only 5% (now probably 10-15%, since you have driven so many players away with how horrendously implemented and managed these events were run).

Also:

What we need is a more newbie-friendly game so that ppl that surely will come in over the next time, when the wall hits them on classic or when they realize classic is boring and slow as hell, actually stay here on Live.

- See above.  You're killing the game for new players, who see how messed up things are, and how stacked things are against them unless they're willing to drop $20,000 - $40,000 USD on pixels, and same for average to high-end players who are foolish enough to spends crazy amounts of RMTs.  Make the game enjoyable again for everyone - not just the top 5% spenders.

Like someone else said, when players come back from the slow-grind of Classic Servers (which I hope they do soon, to save the game for Live servers), they need something reasonable - hopeful for the future - to come back to L2 Live.

[OmenOfSteel]

18 hours ago, Helv said:

I hate it, it is far from perfect. As a wynn I did not have enough dps to finish it even after it was made easier.

I talked about Oriana Lucky Draw, not about the Golden Compass.

[Helv]

3 hours ago, OmenOfSteel said:

I talked about Oriana Lucky Draw, not about the Golden Compass.

Right, temporary blindness must have hit me. I seem to have lost an option to edit my posts, so can't correct it.

[Jinkariya]

meanwhile back at ncsoft 
https://media.giphy.com/media/SXYGgH8nPZxYc/giphy.gif

[CLASSICmergeCHRONOS]

MORE GEAR = MORE DMG this is what you shoul know about this game . Make sure you are in the right path. 

[Draecke]

some good points but dayum that..

[AllCom]

Draecke, Jinkariya, OmenOfSteel and every one of the regular forum members that know in first hand of the live server's situation can pls answer two simple question come's in my mind .

If you guys stop playing in how many years will a new play be able to match you with the current drop and game play situation?

Just a simple info. I invited few days ago a friend of mine to join live server and gifted him one of my box. This player is a very professional l2 pvp player with huge success in many illegal servers. The toon i gave is a yul 103 with +11 set pvp, +13 3 sa bow , full str and dex dyes, +10 legendary pvp cloak , pvp belet , lvl3 jewl, dragon shirt, tauti ring, bless athy, and sme other things that it is not easy to farm and dont find them down the road... what i am saying that the char cost few bill and still is just 1 hit toon.

Ofc when my friend saw how hard is to farm and how easy he can die ... he left.

So the second question: How we can wlc the new play to join?

[2SHAE]

3 hours ago, AllCom said:

Draecke, Jinkariya, OmenOfSteel and every one of the regular forum members that know in first hand of the live server's situation can pls answer two simple question come's in my mind .

If you guys stop playing in how many years will a new play be able to match you with the current drop and game play situation?

Just a simple info. I invited few days ago a friend of mine to join live server and gifted him one of my box. This player is a very professional l2 pvp player with huge success in many illegal servers. The toon i gave is a yul 103 with +11 set pvp, +13 3 sa bow , full str and dex dyes, +10 legendary pvp cloak , pvp belet , lvl3 jewl, dragon shirt, tauti ring, bless athy, and sme other things that it is not easy to farm and dont find them down the road... what i am saying that the char cost few bill and still is just 1 hit toon.

Ofc when my friend saw how hard is to farm and how easy he can die ... he left.

So the second question: How we can wlc the new play to join?

1st. He's playing a yul - even the strongest yuls in our version of the game are one shot from another any half decent geared one with full skills open.

2nd. Their really isn't a way to welcome someone if they aren't willing to adjust to the current state of live. You gave someone more than a decently geared toon and because he comes from a illegal server which have a more natural balance between defence/attack items he didn't like the lack of survivability on live version. This server has a truly awful disparity in terms of dmg increasing items/consumables compared to defensive ones, this makes burst dmg chars like yuls pure glass cannons. About the only class which the Korean balance team currently have done a decent job with are feohs - they have both decent damage and survivability whilst not being overwhelming in either aspect. Any new player coming into the game if not choosing to role a feoh must be willing to adapt/accept the fact that unlike some other mmos balance changes here are often extremely slowly done and often then cab be nullified by the latest L2Store items.

[Mutch84]

Agree with OP.

You guys are charging hundreds of dollars for nothing, which a few people will buy. Now think if you lowered the price how many people would buy this junk. Your events are horrible, you are bleeding players by the day. Your customer service is horrid. You mention how "We wont be breaking the rules for anyone anymore" yet it took me about five emails to have multiple gms break the rules. Instead of server base xp, you release this vit junk, another slap in the face.

Also, fantastic job releasing an event support can't partake in. You guys should just give every support player the +10, and 10k free ncoin for being substandard humans.

I can go buy a ps4, and red dead redemption 2 for what, 300 bucks? Or I can have a +0 shirt, that is worse then previous shirts. 

Infa, you will get the "we are working on creating new and exciting events in the future, please stay tuned for exciting news"

Realistically too, what is keeping people logging in? PvP is beyond broken, OLY is a topaz fight, and use all these bought item skills, and sieges are just as dumb. They just need to make it so you cant play while speaking on ts/discord/vent so the remaining player base can move onto something else. (Red dead redemption 2 is really fun)

The one perk I can see to how you run your company is that I can borrow a bunch of gear from all the people that have quit and not have to put anymore money into this game.

"Guys don't worry about live players anymore, we have new idiots spending tonnes of money on classic, these people that have been supporting us for 14 years? Don't really matter anymore" lol.

[Foxes]

The NCWest live servers has extreme prices; just look at the overwhelming difference between NCwest and In-nova. Differences between American and European markets? (sounds like a good excuse ) . NCwest must pay more taxes on transactions I guess.

Attract more potential players? for live servers; definitely will NOT happen. They already did with the launch of the classic servers.

So, what's left us now?

An uncomfortable truth, for me it is clear. The extinction of clients and services is a good strategy for the losses control. Imagine; provoke the exodus of players leaving just only one server alive, means less spending on maintenance, technical support and GM control. There will not good changes on the future of p2w's market, may be the prices will become bigger and bigger. I watched on youtube some videos about aden sieges on japanese server; just 2pt v/s 2pt; that's the close future, and of course the ending of live servers, just like happened with MXM where the company closed the game in one shoot.

Consider I didnt mention about unbalanced competition in to game...

Why do you think NCWest allows this "players exodus" happen here?.

What NCWest can do?;

Make more free events in game like "Oriana's lucky "and give us an agony at least pleasant.

Now... there's a very remote possibility that NCwest keep the live-server alive until the end of the whole lineage world, in courtesy to the years of L2's existence,

 

Keep dreaming!!

[Yidao]

15 hours ago, AllCom said:

Draecke, Jinkariya, OmenOfSteel and every one of the regular forum members that know in first hand of the live server's situation can pls answer two simple question come's in my mind .

If you guys stop playing in how many years will a new play be able to match you with the current drop and game play situation?

The problem is, these guys will not stop playing, and what is even worse, they will not stop spending money on the game. By the time your friend has matched the current top players, said top players will already be super-top players: by the time you have lvl 5 Jewels, they will have lvl 5 Jewels plus a Stage 10 Sayha Talisman, especially since items are not permanently available in the store but only once or twice per year. You can't simply dig out your credit card and jump into the game.

The cold hard truth is, in Lineage 2 a new player can not PvP and win, no matter how much he or she spends. If you are into PvE (like I myself), you can have lots of fun in A-Grade hunting grounds, without spending a dime. If you are interested in PvP, Lineage 2 Classic is the better choice.

[WetPinay]

9 hours ago, Mutch84 said:

Agree with OP.

"Guys don't worry about live players anymore, we have new idiots spending tonnes of money on classic, these people that have been supporting us for 14 years? Don't really matter anymore" lol.

What is more idiotic? Spending thousands of $$ to attempt or give the appearance of being competitive on live or everyone start from scratch with equal gear etc on classic? At least on classic we have 120 man field raids going on. On live it's one or two people farming all the raids with their boxes.

[0glalas]

On 21/11/2018 at 7:21 AM, OmenOfSteel said:

Most important: No new exclusive P2W items!!!! Each new item (the horrendous shirt for example) is killing a part of your community!

 

Exactly!

If regular players don't feel themselves just a little bit close to top players no point to spend more money and time in game because they are easy gonna loose the pleasure of the game.

No regular players - no game.

[AllCom]

7 hours ago, Yidao said:

The problem is, these guys will not stop playing, and what is even worse, they will not stop spending money on the game. By the time your friend has matched the current top players, said top players will already be super-top players: by the time you have lvl 5 Jewels, they will have lvl 5 Jewels plus a Stage 10 Sayha Talisman, especially since items are not permanently available in the store but only once or twice per year. You can't simply dig out your credit card and jump into the game.

The cold hard truth is, in Lineage 2 a new player can not PvP and win, no matter how much he or she spends. If you are into PvE (like I myself), you can have lots of fun in A-Grade hunting grounds, without spending a dime. If you are interested in PvP, Lineage 2 Classic is the better choice.

Personally i think that going to the past it is just wrong. The past is the past and should stay in our memory. Playing this game it is a personal choice based on the evolution and the progress of the game/friends etc . I really don't get the players that want to play with c grade again and just don't ask for a wipe on live server with the l2store that ncsoft chose to have on classic (not that it will remain in this form for long time. Soon you will see exclusive top items on classic l2store).

PVE was never the propose of l2. You use PVE to play PVP, that was l2. Staying on killing Balok 9999999 times has no point if we don't compare our game skill lvl to each other.

In any case i probably have some wrong opinion since it is the opposite what the majority of players do in reality. No less i failed to help the community to bring more players to MMORPG. But really i dont know what to do. Twice i lost my friend/cp from major game change without warning (we are 35 + and don't have the time any more to justify the "GM .do what they want and don't have to apologies to any one policy").

For the moment i as many other play with my 3 or 6 box depend on the activity a MMORPG. That is the current state.

P.S. Players are being more rude day by day.

[RaistlinIII]

1 hour ago, 0glalas said:

Exactly!

If regular players don't feel themselves just a little bit close to top players no point to spend more money and time in game because they are easy gonna loose the pleasure of the game.

No regular players - no game.

Great point.   I've already stated the problem with the last three events (basically - heavily favor the very top 5%, those that have thousands of $$ to spend, lack of benefit for the average to even top 10-20% of player base).

Simply put - make the events more attainable to everyone (not 100% attainable to everyone - should still have to work for it - but more attainable, especially for some of the support classes, and not top-geared players).  I know that there would be some backlash from some players (I worked pretty hard to get the +5 Merkio's bracelet myself - at least it was attainable, putting the time in, after the first few weeks) - but give the average player, the new players, even the higher end players who have been playing for years but don't have top gear - a reason to stay, and play for improvements to that they can advance in play areas and game play.

[Dawe]

4 minutes ago, AllCom said:

if we don't compare our game skill lvl to each other.

BTW... you can't compare skill with wallet.

[NemesiC]

On 21/11/2018 at 9:21 AM, OmenOfSteel said:

Basically OP is right with everything.

What we need is a more newbie-friendly game so that ppl that surely will come in over the next time, when the wall hits them on classic or when they realize classic is boring and slow as hell, actually stay here on Live.

Also we need more drops from daily instances. The Savior Mask and Guard Agathion fragments are very good improvements for free players to get some adena. Also add some more other/normal/old stuff to the droplist, instead those useless modify-scrolls.

Lower prices on ALL L2Store items: Ppl compare to EU or RU servers and get mad over NCWest pricing. Understandable and easy to fix. Do it !

Most important: No new exclusive P2W items!!!! Each new item (the horrendous shirt for example) is killing a part of your community! I said it many times, I'll say it again: Do NOT bring new exclusive L2Store items more than max. twice a year! Everything else is overkill...

Recycle old P2W items (we have plenty) for lower prices or with better success rates so the gap can be closed and ppl can catch up.
 

But there's also something positive: The new Oriana Event is close to perfect! Everyone gets a little something for free, some ppl get the jackpot. Great event 10/10, very welcome.

@OmenOfSteel we made a big mistake we start in ncwest server and not in Eu. Prices of store are smilar to clients of each  areas. for example here in greece  a mid salary is 580e/month and in US is much bigger. In eu server playing more ppl from not so well payed countries so the prices are on the bottom BUT u are forced to pay a small price for account like prestig (which i find it cheaper) than  here which is Pay for free to win.

As the drops  u describing forget them in next update ... they will nerf  drops now u told them  

The gap cannot close.....noone is giving money  and adena is a rare thing !!!

They put  free events now where ppl left to classic and in 2 3 months they ll come back , get ready for a heavy pay to win events non stop.
The matter nowdays is that me for example am thinking  not to spend more money on game  cause it s going to close as it seems  cause noone cares. i think lot of ppl who stayed in live do the same.I never was playing with prestige pach and after update i was thinking to put but  now  i wont
I m really sad about l2...