[X] My Assistant

I hope for something good to come from PAs because right now I'm regretting maxing archaeologist training. Maybe a +exp gain consumable?

This thread is making me feel like I'm actually in an isekai, because I have never managed to play enough in a day to actually run down my Stamina ever

After stopping PA acquisition of energy drinks,
Good equipment → Play games more times →get better equipment,

this cycle will be broken
It's not difficult to just pass through Arena

This is true, it's not too difficult to get through arenas so no reason to rush for top tier equips now, but on the other hand there won't be as many strong equipments anymore anyways considering many of the sellers in auctions were consistent names and they seemed to be huge grinders if the Energy Drink logs are anything to go by. And I don't see them grinding as much if its very expensive to do so, unless the crystal packs explode in price to cover for it in a way that it is sustainable and even then I don't think there's as many star and catgirl people to keep up with the pace at which those items were consumed.

Could it be tokens (Chaos/Blood)? [Untradeable Item]

I second this. Especially if it's Chaos Tokens only.

They could give more crystals, since there will be a lot less coming from Grindfest.

These, but why not both? Higher yield of other stuff like crystals and hath while having a chance of tokens. I would even take a tiiiiiiiiiny chance of blood tokens into the pool since even clearing all arenas isn't a guarantee to get enough for the Spaghetti RoB daily.


EDIT: After reading Hexxuus' post I changed my mind and agree it would lead to lab inflation instead so don't feel as confident in this now.

This thread is making me feel like I'm actually in an isekai, because I have never managed to play enough in a day to actually run down my Stamina ever

It usually requires very hard grinding and being heavily punished by the riddlemaster to ever run out of stamina. Even clearing all arenas is mostly covered by the daily regen. However it takes a while to get the riddles right and the exp bonus of being over stam 60 is way more difficult to mantain now so level and proficiency related goals just got more difficult so I'm with mathl33t there. Maybe a little untradable item that boosts exp perhaps?

This post has been edited by Pretty anon: Mar 26 2023, 04:35

Could it be tokens (Chaos/Blood)? [Untradeable Item]

This would at least give some value to the artifacts.

Yeah, but then the artifact itself would need to be untradeable? If precurser artifacts aren't soul bound I do think the monster lab could see a huge inflation, the blood tokens are capped by arena cooldown, but chaos has no limit.

Since chaos tokens can't be bought and they have progressive deminishing returns, it somewhat keeps monster lab size at bay.

If you can freely buy PA, some large investors are just going to sink everything in monster farms and within a few months have return on the returns of their investment, with materials just piling up.

So either souldbound or a significantly smaller drop chance than energy drink did?


If they are tradeable, I can imagine making several accounts and sending your PA to those, just so you can harnass the chaos tokens and make very cheap monster farms and then sell the mats and trade the credits back.

This post has been edited by Hexxuus: Mar 26 2023, 03:01

Higher difficulty mode so there's a use and a source for high-end equipment that doesn't require as much stamina?

Something needs to replace Grindfest as the occupation for end-game players.

(Or they could, you know, take the hint that AI is coming for them.)

This post has been edited by Necromusume: Mar 26 2023, 02:58

Higher difficulty mode so there's a use and a source for high-end equipment that doesn't require as much stamina?

Something needs to replace Grindfest as the occupation for end-game players.

(Or they could, you know, take the hint that AI is coming for them.)

Just migrate ISK Tower to persistent mode, or simply add x20 x30...x100 Hard mode with more reward. Would love to see those end game mage‘s billionaire dream collapse and the age of melee return.

Just migrate ISK Tower to persistent mode, or simply add x20 x30...x100 Hard mode with more reward. Would love to see those end game mage‘s billionaire dream collapse and the age of melee return.

The new IW system was supposedly based on the isekai tower so assuming nothing changed everyone should be getting that sooner or later in some form.

And harder modes with difficulty multipliers need a new balance system as we've seen from Isekai players who went crazy and climbed up pretty far. Unless you mean going full scorched earth for fun in which case I would suggest accompanying this hypothetical mode with the removal of the invulnerability shenanigans from 1H as it throws everything off-balance and so remove stuns from counters (thus killing the chimera 1H mages), reduce counters to 2, lock the style to heavy armor, reduce stats to plate and block from shields and having Fus ro dah and OFC unavailable to the style or give it a cooldown of 100+ turns. Nerfbat to DW in reduced parry too. Then everyone gets to enjoy a big plate of trash and the only people who clear the mode in any reasonable timetrame get banned on the reasoning that they are bots (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Joking aside yeah, I would find acceptable way more difficult challenges only after balance changes, otherwise the "filthy" mages become "filthy" 1h users and a lot of times they are already both either way so nothing really changes besides profiting from selling Repurposed Actuators instead of Crystallized Phazons.

This post has been edited by Pretty anon: Mar 26 2023, 07:12

Yeah, but then the artifact itself would need to be untradeable? If precurser artifacts aren't soul bound I do think the monster lab could see a huge inflation, the blood tokens are capped by arena cooldown, but chaos has no limit.

Since chaos tokens can't be bought and they have progressive deminishing returns, it somewhat keeps monster lab size at bay.

If you can freely buy PA, some large investors are just going to sink everything in monster farms and within a few months have return on the returns of their investment, with materials just piling up.

So either souldbound or a significantly smaller drop chance than energy drink did?
If they are tradeable, I can imagine making several accounts and sending your PA to those, just so you can harnass the chaos tokens and make very cheap monster farms and then sell the mats and trade the credits back.

I don't think it's that bad. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif)

Until yesterday, the chances of getting Energy Drink were 20%. I think for tokens 10% could be enough. For example, to have 200 full chaosed monsters it requires 504,000 chaos tokens. In this case, a player would need 5,040,000 artifacts. And considering the amount of 20,000 credits per artifact, it would be necessary 100,800,000,000 credits. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif) I think even the richest of the players would take a while to get this feat. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)

And this number can increase even more if you share the chances between Chaos and Blood (maybe 4 to 1 (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) ). And if there is competition between rich players, the value of the artifact will rise, increasing this account a lot.

Making artifacts untradeable can be a solution to the situation you expose. But it would be economically bad for the poorest players, who once earned a good amount selling Energy Drink or artifacts, and now they would lose that extra income. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/mellow.gif) And they need this extra credits so they can buy a Gold Star. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

The way it is now was very bad. If I understand Tenboro's explanation correctly, we now have a 40% chance of getting Last Elixir, which is virtually useless for most players. This item has only relevance to those who play Grindfest. But if Energy Drink's offer decreases and its price increases, we'll probably have fewer players playing Grindfest. Consequently the consumption of Last Elixir will be smaller, making it even more useless.

Did I get 3 energy drinks this dawn instead of one?

-snip-

Then everyone gets to enjoy a big plate of trash and the only people who clear the mode in any reasonable timetrame get banned on the reasoning that they are bots

Yeah, then the only way to stop AI is to stop everyone from grinding, cuz anything an end-game players could do can be simulated by BOT also.

HV becomes an idle game, and you buy equipment for your bot to use.

But that won't work either, because people would multiaccount. If software can suddenly solve any captcha, the future of the game is in question.

I've added some more potential items to the PAs. It can now award one of these:

- Last Elixir
- Flower Vase
- Bubble-Gum
- Chaos Token

With the same chance for each of those.

As for EDs, I'll consider adding some other sources for them, they just can't be farmable.

should also maybe increase the amount of crystals from shrine, like 1k x every type of crystals every time, as the crystals from GF will heavily decrease.

the patch won't really stop bot I think, as if there is still profitable then the bot can anyway keep running, the machine doesn't need mortal stamina. need maybe a brainstorm to punish the bot in the battle.
some kind of spot update may use to punish the bot maybe, like suddenly change the API behaviour in the battle to burn a lots of things (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

It's good to see measures against abnormal players, but I don't know what measure is really good for ordinary player but not as good for cheating/multi-accounting/botting, but one thing I can think is EXP gaining. If one was to farm for EXP or proficiency, he could buy some EDs but now he may needs much more credits for that. If we can get something from PA to increase EXP gained it'd be a good compensation for removing EDs, and it doesn't give much other benefits.

the patch won't really stop bot I think, as if there is still profitable then the bot can anyway keep running

The problem with how it used to be was that you could get EDs just from playing normally. Now, the value of EDs should stabilize to be roughly equal to how much value you can gain from 10 stamina plus whatever effort it takes to spend it. And if the effort is close to zero, as in the case of bots, the cost vs profit will be almost equal, which means that all the value gained is shared by the people selling the EDs instead of the people running the bots, which again makes the actual process of high-volume botting rather pointless. In theory, anyway.

And it's a lot easier to detect multi-account farms than it is to detect casual botting.

should anyone wonder: the new artifact behavior also applies to obsolete easter trophies. I just tested with core carrying bags, and got the new stuff.

This thread is making me feel like I'm actually in an isekai, because I have never managed to play enough in a day to actually run down my Stamina ever

As do I, and probably more than 90% of HV players. But of course the hardcore players are the most likely to react to changes (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wink.gif).

HV becomes an idle game, and you buy equipment for your bot to use.

It could go Pokemon style by your monsters fighting other monsters or turn the inhabitants of the monsterlabs into autoclickers (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif).

How about: a Secret Pony Level Refresh Item? How it would work: you play SPL today, then use out-of-battle-item Secret Pony Level Refresh Item. The item makes it possible to play SPL again, same day, for the second time!

That way LV 500 players can grind with max EXP multiplier, and get more trophy income. Or, for lower levels, also an unlocking item for the other SG arena's? That would compensate a bit for the EXP grind loss. Maybe it will flood the market with trophies, but I think there is still sufficient demand. And because we can't grindfest that much, there will be less great gear dropped so extra equipment from trophies isn't that bad?
You could do for instance:
Crystals: 40%
Last elixir: 10%
DWD unlocking 5%
PGC unlocking 5%
SPL Unlocking 5%
Vase: 5%
Gum: 5%
Chaos token: 5%
Hath: 20%

or leave out the tokens, because they used to be untradable and now they kinda are. And let DWD unlock be 10%

Edit: some rewording to make it more clear

This post has been edited by Noni: Mar 26 2023, 10:49

I've added some more potential items to the PAs. It can now award one of these:

- Last Elixir
- Flower Vase
- Bubble-Gum
- Chaos Token

With the same chance for each of those.

As for EDs, I'll consider adding some other sources for them, they just can't be farmable.

This is a step forward.
But Precursor Artifacts will probably still be far under the previous value if they are decoupled from Energy Drinks.

Rather than a limit on PA/ED income that would make everyone poorer,
you can put a limit on heavy ED usage (relaxed somewhat for donators) that would penalize only the suspicious heavy drinkers.
Or you can leave pre-patch artifacts as they were and make post-patch artifacts a different item.
Postcursor Artifact perhaps?

Sorry for the rant.
I'm still shaken that my sizable artifact cache turned into a pile of pennies.
It's hard dealing with a stock crash of what was assumed to be a safe asset.

And because we can't grindfest that much, there will be less great gear dropped so extra equipment from trophies isn't that bad?

Or simply increase the equip drop rate as a regular event with limited ED usage, like ISK early bird period.