[X] My Assistant

But fine. You want to know the real reason for the HP buff?

The intention was always that people turn up the difficulty as they get stronger, but they weren't doing that, preferring easy mode farming instead. Turning up the loot quality didn't work, so this was another way of trying to balance the cost/benefit ratio of the different difficulties.

Damn, and here I thought you were trying to prevent the Apocalypse. Well I guess it's close enough.

Well, if you want to know why people weren't playing on higher difficutlies, I can explain it to you. Semi-long post ahead.

You might need to check whether that loot quality is really turned up or not, people aren't playing on higher difficulties simply because there doesn't appear to be any difference. I can say with certainty that I play on IWBTH more than any other player, by a considerable margin too I might add. Notice any difference on drops? Nah. To compare, I can get an exquisite playing normal and playing on IWBTH for the past few months, there hasn't been a single magnificent drop. This is outside of arena clear bonuses but this point is pretty moot considering you can get magnificents on normal if you get lucky with the clear bonus. I don't know how the loot quality equation works since you've supposedly "boosted" the bonus for the higher difficulties but I can tell you right off the bat that it's not working. I'm not sure if this is still the case but I remember a post by you stating that the loot quality increases as one levels up, and as the highest level with LoTD nearly maxed and playing on IWBTH exclusively, what's the best drop I've gotten so far? An exquisite. Yes that's right, not magnificent or legendary, but an exquisite. Which is the same as before all those supposed increases to the loot bonus for higher difficulties. So this whole "Turning up the loot quality didn't work" thing is pretty bull. You can check whether I'm lying or not by checking my drop logs and all the rounds on I played on IWBTH. As it is, there's no real benefit to playing on higher difficulties except for the increase in EXP, which is pretty ironic considering that leveling up only hinders me more and more.

I used to do all my arenas on Nintendo/BT and barely got any Exquisite, let alone Magnificent or Legendary.
Now I'm doing everything on Hard and I get 4-5 Exquisites everyday. Plus Magnificents.
True story.

But fine. You want to know the real reason for the HP buff?

The intention was always that people turn up the difficulty as they get stronger, but they weren't doing that, preferring easy mode farming instead. Turning up the loot quality didn't work, so this was another way of trying to balance the cost/benefit ratio of the different difficulties..

And yet, you've still failed.

You seem to have missed the #1 issue that makes people play low difficulties. Time. People don't like spending 6 hours to accomplish the same thing that used to take them 4 hours, that used to take them 2 hours, that used to take them 1 hour, that used to be played on higher difficulties, and so on with every new gameplay mechanic change.

The ironic part is I used to play only BT before you nerfed the bejesus out of mages. Before this particular patch, I still did some Hard and Heroic on things that took roughly the same amount of time as on Normal. This was due not to monster strengths, but due to a limitation you placed to prevent us from playing as much or as far on higher difficulties (multiplicative stat calculations; no 100% accuracy.) Now I play perma-Normal, if at all, since it takes an excessive amount of time to accomplish the same things as before, for the same reward.


If you want stronger people to play higher difficulties, then you need to work on balancing time versus benefit, either by decreasing time or increasing benefit more as the difficulty goes up. The rewards for playing higher difficulties right now are moot, because the increase in time required vastly outweighs the purported increase in benefits. And I say purported because it's much easier to obtain exquisite equipment and up on Normal. I've had max LotD and Quartermaster for a long, long time, and I have never gotten anything from BT/IWBTH that I haven't already received on Normal.

And EXP beyond level 300 is not a benefit. With monsters scaled to your level and the new HP buff, it's a hindrance.


Edit:
And various points ninja'd above.

This post has been edited by hitokiri84: Feb 5 2012, 00:37

And there you have it: A serious lack of incentives to play on higher difficulties. The risk/reward ratio is too skewed and it's only gotten worse. Monsters with more HP = more time wasted.

Possible incentives for higher difficulties:
- Much bigger credit drop multiplier, this should also affect the arena clear bonuses
- Stamina regen during Arena battles (maybe even all battle modes) past a certain difficulty
- Another tier of abilities
- Material drops
- Increased trophy drops for EoD+ (I'm told it's 10% right now and completely static)
- Slightly higher chances for Powerup Gems
- Increased artifact drop chance (IWBTH only)

And as usual, these can become active only after a certain # of rounds to prevent abuse.

wait. people didn't know that was why he didn't the hp change? O_O

edit: did* the

This post has been edited by dcherry: Feb 5 2012, 02:15

Can we get more quickcast bars?

And also, regarding the difficulty VS rewards thing.
Increasing the difficulty of the game for *everyone* just for the few at the top is not the way to go. You're just increasing the barrier of entry for a lot of people, me included. Mobs hit hard, and they burst hard too. And it takes a long time to kill them.

I was wondering. What if you change the loot system into a moving window kind. Let me explain:
Easy: Crude to average, skewed towards crude.
Normal: Crude to superior, skewed towards fair.
Hard: Fair to exquisite, skewed heavily towards fair-average.
Heroic: Fair to exquisite, skewed heavily towards average.
Nightmare: Average to exquisite, skewed towards average-fine, but average more.
Hell: Average to exquisite, skewed more towards fine.
Nintendo: Fine to magnificent, skewed towards fine-superior, more towards fine.
Battletoads: Fine to magnificent, skewed towards superior.
IWBTH: Superior to legendary, skewed towards superior-exquisite.

That would be one way to solve it IMO. You can also make it so that mobs have more roll rounds in higher difficulties or something.

I think the main reason why people farm in Normal/easy is because they can do many more rounds compared to IWBTH. If you think about it, IWBTH is x25 normal, so that means you should expect the number of mobs you kill to be cut down by around 1/5 or more. So unless the rewards are significantly increased (I'm not talking 2-3x the loot chances/quality increase, it should be at least 12-15x).

IMO, the increase in loot chance/quality/artifact drops should be increased more than the difficulty itself. It should be *more* rewarding playing at a higher difficulty compared to the difficulty increase. Otherwise, who would bother playing at a higher level difficulty?

Can we get more quickcast bars?

And also, regarding the difficulty VS rewards thing.
Increasing the difficulty of the game for *everyone* just for the few at the top is not the way to go. You're just increasing the barrier of entry for a lot of people, me included. Mobs hit hard, and they burst hard too. And it takes a long time to kill them.

I was wondering. What if you change the loot system into a moving window kind. Let me explain:
Easy: Crude to average, skewed towards crude.
Normal: Crude to superior, skewed towards fair.
Hard: Fair to exquisite, skewed heavily towards fair-average.
Heroic: Fair to exquisite, skewed heavily towards average.
Nightmare: Average to exquisite, skewed towards average-fine, but average more.
Hell: Average to exquisite, skewed more towards fine.
Nintendo: Fine to magnificent, skewed towards fine-superior, more towards fine.
Battletoads: Fine to magnificent, skewed towards superior.
IWBTH: Superior to legendary, skewed towards superior-exquisite.

That would be one way to solve it IMO. You can also make it so that mobs have more roll rounds in higher difficulties or something.

I think the main reason why people farm in Normal/easy is because they can do many more rounds compared to IWBTH. If you think about it, IWBTH is x25 normal, so that means you should expect the number of mobs you kill to be cut down by around 1/5 or more. So unless the rewards are significantly increased (I'm not talking 2-3x the loot chances/quality increase, it should be at least 12-15x).

IMO, the increase in loot chance/quality/artifact drops should be increased more than the difficulty itself. It should be *more* rewarding playing at a higher difficulty compared to the difficulty increase. Otherwise, who would bother playing at a higher level difficulty?

I agreed bonuses need to be increased but not too much. Think about how some people will break the game if they play excessively on IWBTH and get an awesome drop from every third monster.

---

Here a bunch of suggestions on how to make people play on higher settings, make them train higher monsters and so on:

# Slightly, just slightly increase the chance for rare drops (Phase,Ethereal,Katalox...) for higher difficulty settings. If I take the time to BT all non schoolgirl arenas for weeks and then end up with only Cotton junk... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

# Introduce 'Unique' gear. Unique like in Diablo 2! It will only drop starting from Heroic+ and can only be dropped by your own Monsters if it reached a certain Powerlevel. 400+? This shits should be really good but also very rare. Like 1-2 generated each year. (also not obtainable at the shrine (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) )

# Bring back Second Wind but linked to difficulty settings. On normal it will hardly ever trigger while on BT and IWBTH it will work liked it used to.

# No good Ideas for Cryfest. The only chance to make us play this on harder Settings is to fix time/reward but is it really needed? Just decrease the EXP Bonuses an in exchange give some Crystal bonus when fighting your own monsters. Maybe based on PL and Difficulty.

# Powergamer Blockers. Some people will hate it but it is a good way to prevent people from playing to much without breaking it for normal players. As HV works now I simply don't have the time do even my dailys.

# Reduce Monster HP again (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) Also balance them so people will actually get stronger with each level up.

# Another one people will hate: Remove Bonus EXP from Customs (or make it work only for your own) so people NEED to play higher settings if they want to level up.

# Also introduce a new Level 350 Arena. Not a Schoolgirl marathon again please. Also with a new Title which is actually worth it so people will grind to get here!

# Also a level 400 Arena to motivate Sushi (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

You might need to check whether that loot quality is really turned up or not, people aren't playing on higher difficulties simply because there doesn't appear to be any difference.

Well, there is.

Lvl 300 MBP on Normal: qualityboost = 1094, quality_bonus = 0.30913798144906

Lvl 300 MBP on IWBTH: qualityboost = 1797, quality_bonus = 0.46689312369709

So on Normal it would be roughly equal to a Bunny-Girl Costume, while on IWBTH it would be somewhere between a Black T-Shirt and a Unicorn Horn.

Well, there is.

Lvl 300 MBP on Normal: qualityboost = 1094, quality_bonus = 0.30913798144906

Lvl 300 MBP on IWBTH: qualityboost = 1797, quality_bonus = 0.46689312369709

So on Normal it would be roughly equal to a Bunny-Girl Costume, while on IWBTH it would be somewhere between a Black T-Shirt and a Unicorn Horn.

Better to ask here.
One stupid question: legendary trophies now have the same quality bonus or not?
(Bunny-Girl Costume, Hinamatsuri Doll, Broken Glasses; exclude Lock of Blue Hair)

my experience on the difficulty levels.
When i do Item world on easy i can run 120 levels with only 3 pots used
When i use Normal however i wont get above 80 depleting all my pots

I want to do a higher level but that results in a failure of the run so i wont.

Also on the arena's the higher levels like IWTBH takes to much time for me to complete. And the only award i noticed is more exp

Sorry wrong thread

This post has been edited by Annoyed: Feb 5 2012, 16:38

Suggestion for the next patch:
Remove the hp buff and forbid easy at lvl 100, normal at level 200 and hard at level 300.

might work. i was thinking this hp increase although targeted at high level grinders (primarily), it hurts the low levels by a lot. at least remove the hp increase for all players under 150 or something?

e: *might work was directed at danixxx. i think he plays BT+ usually anyways so yeah... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

This post has been edited by dcherry: Feb 5 2012, 19:46

I simply don't know what happened.

It's how I play the game before 0.6.4 patch
1. Play those EOD and above arenas on normal for trophies
2. Play other arenas on hell or above for the EXP.
3. Play IW on hard/heroic to level up my equipments and get some potions (to support act 1 and 2)

I rarely touches GF/CF.
I may get less equipments/artifacts/credits, but I like the challenge from difficult arenas.
Seems like I'm following your idea, right?

I'm still screwed by 0.6.4 patch.

Main reasons:
1. IW is almost unplayable, even on normal.
If you need ET to finish an IW, that would be a pretty bad idea.
Especially if it's only on normal difficulty, and you need to play through 200 levels to get the equipment's level rise by 1.

2. Insufficient potions
I am still playing on hell difficulty, but my potion stack is quickly disappearing.
If I want to get some potions, surely I need to play on normal difficulty.
Otherwise, how can I support my mana usage? By ET again?
ET can be good in emergency conditions, but it's too time-consuming if used too often.

3. Indifference among difficulties
I tried to lower the difficulty from hell to nightmare, but I found that I'm still using the same amount of mana.
So I can't even save some mana if I try to tone my difficulty setting?
It's not like the patch where elemental rating is removed: lowering your difficulty is painful, but at least you get some benefits.

I feel like a student who try to follow the guidelines, and still get punished unexpectedly for no obvious reasons.

If the situation persists, I may have to join those who play in normal difficulty only; not because I want to, but because I no longer have the ability to support myself playing in high difficulty.

(P.S. I want to have time to edit wiki, but I just can't spare much now because everything's so tedious (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) )

This post has been edited by varst: Feb 5 2012, 20:09

might work. i was thinking this hp increase although targeted at high level grinders (primarily), it hurts the low levels by a lot. at least remove the hp increase for all players under 150 or something?

e: *might work was directed at danixxx. i think he plays BT+ usually anyways so yeah... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I had to reduce my arenas on nintendo (WTF 34% more hp on BT) but i usually played on normal for CF/schoolgirls arenas and hard/heroic for IW. The problem is now normal have more hp than pre-patch heroic so i would prefer to have the bonuses of playing heroic at least.

Ooh, 1 more suggestion for higher difficulties:
Lowers the PL cap of monsters that you can face.

Ooh, 1 more suggestion for higher difficulties:
Lowers the PL cap of monsters that you can face.

No one would be motivated to create high level monsters anymore

It should be the other way around. Low levels should be able to get killed by Lisi too! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I had to reduce my arenas on nintendo (WTF 34% more hp on BT) but i usually played on normal for CF/schoolgirls arenas and hard/heroic for IW. The problem is now normal have more hp than pre-patch heroic so i would prefer to have the bonuses of playing heroic at least.

hmm that does suck. especially since you were probably one of the high levels that played high difficulty more often than others. i stopped playing high difficulties once the arena heal was removed. i didn't have a shitton of healing tokens stashed so there was no way i was going to waste mine for arenas unless the reward was worth the token.

i like ichy's suggestion of shifting the drop ratios for higher difficulty. if you're playing IWBTH, you shouldn't be running into cottons... you're playing with the big(ger) boys now - ie they should have a slightly higher chance of phase/gossamer compared to lower difficulties.

crystal fest will suffer regardless because it totally relies on quantity. solution could be a steeper crystal drop growth formula in relation to rounds/difficulty

Well, there is.

I don't doubt that it really is turned up, but the fact remains that the chance to get a drop better than exquisite playing on IWBTH is nonexistent or abysmally small even if it is. Sure, the frequency of superiors and exquisites is increased for playing on the higher difficulties, but this is pretty lackluster if we can't topple that exquisite bottleneck even on the hardest difficulty. From data I've seen in various threads and drops that I found myself, there doesn't seem to be a notable difference from normal and IWBTH as far as ranges go. Based on my personal records playing on normal, you can get equipment ranged from Crude to Exquisite and for IWBTH it's from Average to Exquisite. The primary reason for playing on IWBTH is to get the "really good stuff," not an increased frequency of garbage. Note that everything I've said thus far is outside of arena clear bonuses which I'll address in a bit.

One thing you should consider is how long it takes to clear 1 round on IWBTH and 1 round on normal. Previously, if you can do normal in 2 seconds, it'd most likely take 10+ seconds on IWBTH. Since the drop rate is a static 10%, doing more rounds = more equipment = more chances to get good gear. That's the biggest reason why no one bothered to play on the higher difficulties. I think I was the only one dumb enough to consistently play on IWBTH while everyone else was farming a mountain of profit from normal GF/CF.

In my opinion, there are various ways where you can easily fix this.

1) Revamp the arena clear bonus system. In its current form, there appears to be no difference clearing an arena on normal or IWBTH. I think you should reduce this bonus for normal/hard and increase it for the higher difficulties accordingly. It's just pretty absurd that you can get magnificents on such low difficulties, and here you are wondering why players are preferring easy mode normal arena farming. Another possible modification to this might be to let LotD affect this clear bonus, so it can actually be useful for a change.
2) Increase the upper tier of obtainable equipment for the higher difficulties and reduce it for the lower ones. Don't increase it so much that it'd break the game, but enough so that it'd actually be feasible to get. Playing on IWBTH for months on end without seeing a single drop better than exquisite would be considered not feasible (Yes, an idiot has done this in the past).