Current state of rare purges

[Kalist19]

Stiehl - I think a guy with less than 20hrs in a cabal can still be a valuable member of the team. He might not be the head honcho but he can still contribute. I don't think a guy with 2 hours has anything to offer but at least if you get ~10+ you're probably present enough to get some fights in.

I'm not a big fan of the tournament stuff. Nicer to fight on your own terms if possible. Any way to just make kills count towards extra time?

[Vhrael]

Couple of things that stand out to me...

1) Kills counting toward "time served": what's to stop someone from power ranking 50's for OOC buddies just to have as meatbags at the end of the month? "Hey log on your meatshield, I need some kills to keep my rares for my other other character that I don't play that much."

2) Older characters, period: maybe we could have a discussion about "legacy characters," like those Kalist is trying to preserve. Maybe after X months (12 months or greater, perhaps?) the pfiles are marked as "safe from purging?" Or maybe like a conquest or something, they have to petition for being marked as safe. Sort of like a "living HoE" nomination of sorts. If the character is prestigious or famed enough, or gets a certain reputation or whatever (somehow contributes to the in-game environment enough to be worth preserving) they get flagged where the game won't purge them, regardless of number of hours logged each month?

I think for someone like Kalist, we either need to address his lack of play time due to hoarding a bunch of old characters, or we're basically saying "you need to delete/purge your old chars because they're not valuable enough, or you need to devote your time to active chars only, caballed or otherwise." If those older characters are worth him keeping for nostalgia's sake, but he doesn't have a lot of time to play, we're forcing him to either get rid of his memorable characters or split what time he does have between just idling chars for preservation and actually playing current relevant chars.

Thoughts?

[Davairus]

I could see minutes earned from kills for
(A) killing a higher rated player
(B) dying to a higher rated player

[Xenyar]

What about the players that aren't pkers? So far I don't see any idea that's going to work well. I'm not sure it needs to be changed anyways. But I do completely understand Kalist's point.. That's tough to deal with. I'm in that same boat a good bit of the time buddy.
What is it right now...basic/low lvl rare 10 hours, good rare 17 hours, and unique 20 hours?
The easiest solution imo would be to just compromise the hour amount. For example, keep the base/low rare at 10 hrs, and nice rare/unique at 16. Not saying I'm all for, or against, that. So instead of 10-20 hours, the window is smaller with 10-16 hours. Kalist, would that be much easier for you to work with? I just dont want to see guys with 6.8 hours every month running around in Tenor.
I also believe it is a grass-roots part of AR to have rare purges...so I do not like the idea of purge-free chars.

[Vhrael]

@Xenyar - "not a pker," why do they need rares? If you're a coterie member who's just an extra tag-along for Winter runs, etc. just get a nonrare set and you don't have to worry about being part of the rare shortage or being purged, right?

[Xenyar]

In theory that makes plenty of sense. But, that's just not how it works all the time. Part of AR is gaining equipment and having nice shiny things, PKer or RPer. We can't have a purge system in place that is more pker oriented, and not so much for the RPer. And vise versa.

[Davairus]

Everyone's going to have their own agenda in the thread. This one is Kalist's /Mikoos agenda. There are others like them who are pk'ing actively at level 50 and still getting the shaft anyway. These changes aren't serving the agenda of the guy spamming behind the Kaddar Faries or gold farming or whatever they did to get over 40 hrs activity- its actually the opposite. That guy has an interest in hours being as long as possible since that guy easily beats them while on the couch watching scripts. And that guy is 1% of the 200 people in the system

[Groq]

I agree with the if you're not pking you don't need rares or at least the rares that are used for pking. If your an rp char you can put equipment as part of your rp like a druid walking around in just a sack because what use does nature have for valuable items or something like that. One of the big reasons i feel that if you don't pk you don't need rares is that years ago i played a paladin in knights and made it to executor and I'll never do it again. You couldn't pay me enough to make a pking good align char and, besides paladins are sort of gimp, the biggest reason for that is hoarding healers and nobles. It's near impossible to be fighting all the time but doing it in golden dragon eq because no other good good align rares are around. If they are the hoarders would log in first of the month be able to locate things then go request them before you could get to them and you wouldn't see them again unless they were at their heavens gate spot until the end of the month logging in to get enough hours to keep the eq. So you're fighting decked out legions in golden dragon constantly it just became a char i didn't want to log in anymore because even if i wasn't dying fighting was no fun because it was so lopsided due to equipment. If you're playing a high level evil easiest way to make it easier on yourself at 50 is make a healer rank it to 50 and hoard as much good align eq as possible.

[Xenyar]

I agree with you guys that an RP char doesn't have much use for nice Pker rares. But that isn't going to stop them from having them.
My point wasn't so much just about that. It's about making sure(if it's changed)
the purge system is non-bias to rper/pker. One of the only ways i can think of that would be a level playing field for all, is hour reduction for rares
Since this is a thread generated by Mikoss/Kalist, I am curious what they think about my points... Hour reduction for rares(reference my previous post). And a non-bias purge system, if changed.

[Erlwith]

For me it isn't about maintaining the hours. Honestly, if there was a full rare purge every month regardless of hours, I'd actually be 100% in favor of that over any current or proposed system. I think that would be a fair way take care of it honestly and would let the rares/unique items really circulate.


For me, it is simply the logic of the game as it is.

The game is designed for rares to win the day unless you're a keeper.

More people log in when the game is not picked dry (this is something I noticed early in my AR career).

The game as far as I can tell, is designed to make rares a limited commodity (that you can full loot in pk) therefor, anyone not logging in actively PKing at least 2-3 times a week is hurting the very concept most people seem to log in for (this thread is about rares after all).

And if the game is designed in this way, having rares available in game, makes it more appealing to any non-keeper. I understand Kalist has kids and if you're really that concerned about him in particular, why not just raise the rare cap limit dramatically and lower the hours played to prevent a purge? This seems like a easy way to resolve the issues of both parties, however it does shift that initial game design.

Anything else seems to be discouraging the activity of other players simply in favor of those that can't maintain the hours, since allowing Kalist to keep rares on his chars that he doesn't log in much, literally keeps the rares from anyone else that can't catch him to PK.

I've had a bunch of #1 ranked PKers, have had cabal/coterie leaders, etc. Of all my fondest memories, it is duoing winter for the keys to order and killing him. I'm not trying to nerf Kalist here, just increase the fun of people who enjoy rare hunting as much as I do.

[Olyn]

Action has been taken, effective immediately.

[Davairus]

That is ridiculous honestly. Full rare purge every month. Absolute nonsense.

[Lorne]

Sick.

Rare purges every month...I can't even.

I still think some of the following points can be considered to help the 95% of the player base to achieve their rare goals:

PVP:
aggressive adrenaline/evasive adrenaline - small bonus
killing higher ranked people - larger bonus (implemented already)

PVE:
Killing endgame bosses (I'm talking about the ones that net you the 200+ relics you need groups to kill) - medium bonus for everyone in group

Mix PVE/PVP
Gaining cabal currency - small bonus
Being in a senior cabal member - small bonus

I think the point I am trying to make is to increase the quality of time logged in, with more player to player interactions. This facilities main 2 things:
1) Improves situations for RP and fun, whether that is pvping or pveing
2) Improves the chances of rare circulation (basically survival of the fittest), when there are 2 people in pk range in any one area, the chances of rares being circulated increases

[Davairus]

That PVE boss one is interesting

[hamsandwich]

lol I love that it's a baseball thing.

Also kind of cool how we've made the whole thing way more transparent. It literally says in an old helpfile not to ask how many hours are required to prevent purge because you're not allowed to know. Now knowing is an implemented function

[Kalist19]

First off, thanks everybody for a great discussion. I know there are multiple perspectives here and my fun is not more important than anyone else's. I think what's best is the outcome that gives the most fun to the most people - hopefully we can find that.

Vhrael - You're right, I could see how the 'pk giving bonus time' thing might be abused OOC. This might make extra work for the Imms to try to monitor that but at least they could start with the usual suspects.

"
I think for someone like Kalist, we either need to address his lack of play time due to hoarding a bunch of old characters, or we're basically saying "you need to delete/purge your old chars because they're not valuable enough, or you need to devote your time to active chars only, caballed or otherwise." If those older characters are worth him keeping for nostalgia's sake, but he doesn't have a lot of time to play, we're forcing him to either get rid of his memorable characters or split what time he does have between just idling chars for preservation and actually playing current relevant chars. "

Having multiple chars doesn't detract the time I put on my 'good char' as I tend to log on those other chars at times I would not be able to log on the 'good char' anyways (on phone, at work, etc).

Xenyar - I think lowering the overall amount would work too - I tend to average ~14-22 hours/month I think on my 'good guy' (although when I put in 22 hours that felt like I was playing almost every day - which honestly is too much for family/AR balance).

Erlwith - monthly purge would suck. Reducing hours for everyone and increasing limits on rares is a neat idea. If you increased rares in circulation by like x4 (huge amount as extreme example), things would usually be in and you'd still need to put in the work to get end game gear. Killing and looting would still be the best/fastest way to get that gear.

As to the RPers 'needing rares too' - I get that, everybody wants cool shiny things. Couldn't those guys gamble? They need their gear more to escape than to hunt and kill.

Lorne - awesome ideas, really, all of those are great.

Olyn - Very cool. (Thanks hamsandwich for telling me to click his link!)

[hamsandwich]

Kalist, I think the way Olyn said it works, if I understand correctly, is not that you have to pk someone better than you you just have to pk someone above the Mendoza line. Which is a pretty sizeable amount of people according to his link. 23 people in fact. So even if you're Nyth you can just kill any of the 22 people worse than you and it counts still.

Honestly, being a good pker is an advantage not a disadvantage. Because you can actually kill people.

Which leads me to a bit of a concern. But I'm not sure if it's really an issue or not. Trying to flesh it out as I type here, so bear with me.

People who are good at pk can easily kill someone and therefore keep their rares. People who are good at pk can easily pk someone and take that person's rares. People who are good at pk are never going to not have rares. Meaning that the rest of us average Joe's are going to be fighting an even worse uphill battle of never ever being able to get any decent gear. And if we're not good enough to kill someone with a gear advantage, then we're oh so fucked when we have to try and do it with a gear disadvantage.

I think that makes sense. But I haven't decided if it is something that deserves addressing or not. I mean, being good should have benefits. And losing is a part of any game, you can't prevent losing, that's dumb. But I just feel like these new changes have a possibility of making the divide between good pker and average Joe even greater than it is. At least currently the average Joe has the hope of getting geared up at the start of the month and then riding that strength to win a few pks. Now maybe he won't get that.

Does anyone get what I'm saying or am I dumb?

[Olyn]

Killing any mob that awards relics in chunks will now also contribute.

[Mikoos]

Someone needs to explain to my weak mind why senior cabal members should catch a break regarding purges.

Everyone should be able to have rares, even RP hoarders, should be able to play as they see fit as long as they can be PKed.

Maybe an overall change to blacksmithing could be made so they are harder to purge, but I’ve already recommended that.

Gambled EQ could be expanded? A lot of thought would have to go into it. I’m having a hard time picturing characters running around with a +4/+4 torso that even Keepers can’t purge.

Maybe there should be an upkeep to sets such as tenor or they lose strength/ disintegrate.

[Davairus]

This feels like enough right now. The rating being above a baseline is better than seniors getting tenured.