Thank you Kath, very flattering!
My 2c on what should be done.
Whatever it is it should be a one off solution to a one off problem. Hopefully we will never be flooded with frags like this again.
I am in favour, if HCS can do it, of them simply taking back 90% (for example, but say at least 70%) of the frags given out in the 6 stashes at the end of the event. Or just give us 1 stash, which I thought was a great total at the time! We all pretend they started small. Those who hunted the wraiths keep their extra commons drops they got for their effort. Problem solved. Honest mistake, sorry, etc. etc. We'll balance the rewards better next time. As kalish said - snap off a 0. Why not just do that? It is not as if anyone has spent all their frags already!! (And if they have.... a heartfelt congratulations!) LOL!! This also reduces the disparity in frag hoards for those poor sods who missed out on the event and came back to discover that everyone else was doing a Smaug impression on top of their gigantic piles of glittering fragments.
I am STRONGLY against a new 'mechanism' is the game to deal with this. That is administering a cure for what is only a side effect, or, creating a permanent solution to what should be a temporary problem. Discussion can continue about Composing and XP etc. but the 'frag problem' should not be solved by a new permanent in game mechanism as 1) the excess frags have distorted the situation now and should go away (very) eventually even if we did nothing 2) if we introduce a permanent mechanism to fix it, we make that distortion permanent. Suddenly higher numbers of frags will become the 'needed' norm.
Lets go back to brass tacks. Composing tied to fragmenting. Composing is/(was?) based on the breakdown of items. That was its original purpose. Are we already prepared to divorce the process from its original intent? New game activity WAS opening up. Because of composing new (and older) players WERE getting a new income in game from frag hunting. That is currently on hiatus due to the frag avalanche we just experienced.
A personal example of the disconnect that is being created between item breakdown and composing, and which I think needs to be reduced.
For fun I decided to get my silver artisan medal before I got my bronze fragging medal - which I could do as I hunt commons that drop 5 frags. I made that just before the event. An amusing little thing to myself, no big deal - some fun with the medals (yes that makes me sad - I own it). NOW I can get to artisan CRYSTAL doing 20XP potions without ever needing to break down another item. Artisan crystal, no frag medal. That indicates a complete breakdown in the composing process which was supposed to link item breakdown to potion creation.
Frag globals need to be very carefully monitored as a result. OR - we simply don't care and let this situation occur, then create crazy frag exchanges, that then create demand for more frags and we have more frag globals, and frags become a third game currency. Maybe that will be great. Maybe it will be problematic. I don't know. I still think it will be funny to encourage everyone to get to level 20 composing ultra fast, and then see what happens when everyone can make their own co-at 180's etc. Composing is dull - I think it should be a slog. I'm level 7 - it blows to get from here to the promised land of 10 and be able to compose 2 pots. BUT - I can already make a bigger AL, LF and CON than I can cast - those skills are obsolete (potentially) already, and I'm only at level 7!! And that is before distilling! So you don't need to be this mythical level 50 to be at a game altering level of composing.
If composing is kept tied to item breakdown, thriving game activity will be ensured as people are FORCED to get the frags they need for the potions they want that are superior to any they can cast, and in some cases superior to almost any other source, eventually. This means hunting frags, or hiring hunters. And yep, it will be hard work for a great reward. Frag globals are a shortcut - no wonder everyone was keen for them, they saw a way to get unique and higher frags easily and for less work/stam. I think too many frag events will HARM this potential long term good, by giving away the milk for free so to speak. But I accept minority status on that opinion.
The idea of getting freebies in exchange for large amounts of frags to reduce the new excess (kalish's idea) I think is not great as we all get rewarded for essentially a clerical error on the dev's part, and those potions (for instance) would then distort other areas of the game economy. Should inventors be punished for this? Further we all know that after we have something once, we'll clamour for it again, whether or not it is bad for us in the long run. Because everyone loves freebies and exchanging the frags we got essentially for free for nice potions is what that would be.
Breaking down extra frags for an XP boost - everyone who did the global wins for now, but what about when the supply runs out - who benefits then? Those who can get the most frags the fastest - the highest level players - a two tier composing milieu could be created in which the high level players become the most capable of gaining XP faster and getting access to the biggest composing skills. In built inequality is not a winner, in my book. The game is top heavy enough.
If we keep on having frag globals to keep up with the demand for extra frags for composing XP boosts, then we are again breaking the link between item breakdown and composing. It is funny to see how rapidly that has occurred. So instead of frag farming and game activity and interaction we have people waiting to do globals, and potentailly not much in between. I know which I'd prefer in the game.
I mentioned that we were perhaps looking for composing WIN button. I think I've found it. It is not in any new XP formula: It is the frag global.
I think I'm against the frag global as of now - having talked my way through it to here. Unless brutally reduced in rewards. Even then it will harm other new areas of game activity that were getting good responses. Legendary and Crystal events, SE hunting, frag farming of commons rares and most especially uniques will all be harmed by this. (I had a really cunning plan for unique harvesting - not needed now) frag collecting was making people think about how best to allocate their stam in game again. Gold and FSP were being exchanged between players for services deemed valuable which have just been cut off at the ankles. This global giveaway has ended all that. Further globals need to be very carefully balanced. As uralus said
we will have to see what ripples occur into other areas of the game. See how the next legendary or crystal events are received.
The only good reason for globals I can see is to reduce the advantage high level players have in getting larger amounts of frags from the items they collect, and thus having greater resources with which to compose per stam expenditure. I mentioned a 2 tier composing milieu above - you could argue it exists for that reason alone already. Of course you could also argue that it is an inherent benefit of being high level and so is fair, and another incentive for other folk to gain levels. After all, as it stands a level 250 player could get to level 20 composing and have access to a bunch of skills far beyond their level, thus reducing incentive to level. Swings and roundabouts.
I've run on again.
The new guild medals are still poor representations of in game activity and need to be fixed.
http://forums.hunted...ic=63109&page=9
Edited by Belaric, 08 March 2014 - 23:34.
