-- Hiram: Awakening and Decrystallization
Players will require 10 Hiram Awakening Scrolls or a single Sacred Hiram Awakening Scroll to proceed with the process. Sacred Hiram Awakening Scrolls also provide a higher chance to awaken the equipment. Failure results in Crystallization. Success results in a Radiant Hiram Guardian piece. When an item fails to awaken, there is a chance it will become crystallized. Sacred Hiram Awakening Scrolls provide a higher chance of success when awakening Hiram Guardian equipment, and prevent the item from becoming crystallized in the event of failure.
Players can create Sacred Hiram Awakening Scrolls with 50 Hiram Awakening Scrolls and a Forgotten Knowledge Quill. These quills can be purchased with Loyalty Tokens or with Prestige from the Guild Shop.
Consider either increasing the amount of odds when using a Sacred Awakening Scroll, or reducing the cost of creating them. I'm thinking something in the ballpark of 30 Hiram Awakening Scrolls + Quill, open to other opinions here of course. These were relatively dead content as far as I can tell because the cost in scrolls let alone prestige (via the quill) was so high - not to mention, with double honor on our server, Decrystallization scrolls are inherently easier to obtain.
Decrystallization Scrolls have also been added and are available in the Honor Shop. These scrolls only work with the Awakening process (allowing you to attempt Awakening again), and will not Decrystallize Illustrious - Ayanad crafted equipment.
If you won't make any adjustments to Sacred Hiram Awakening Scrolls, then I would suggest to at the very least, lower the cost of Decrystallization Scrolls by somewhere in the margin of 20-40%. Players will still have to invest something if their Hiram crystallizes, but the setback will be a little bit less frustrating.
-- Coinpurses + Crates
- Increased the gold gained from the following coinpurses: Prince's Coinpurse, Queen's Coinpurse, Scholar's Coinpurse, Librarian's Coinpurse, Dean's Coinpurse, and Ancestor's Coinpurse.
- Increased the labor cost to open Scholar and Dean's Coinpurses.
- Queen's Crate and Ancestral Crate now cost 20 labor to open.
This change needs to be inspected, please try to maintain the same silver/labor on Ancestral Coinpurses.
One thing worth noting here is that if you decide to remove Regrade Braziers + Archeum Saplings and also not include the changes to lunafrosts to make them drop from crates (as many players have been asking you not to), I'm not really sure what the point of crates will be.
Regrade Braziers and Radiant Archeum Saplings have been removed from crates and are now purchased directly from the Vocation Badge shop for 200 badges.
-- Locked Gold Crates
Metallic crates have been adjusted, and new crates have been introduced. Locked Copper Crates can be found during Shadow Invasions, Locked Silver Crates drop from elite mobs on Auroria, and Locked Gold Crates drop from World Bosses. Prior crates can still be used, but cannot be acquired anymore. Prior crates will still use the old drop tables.
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Added Manastorm Crystals to Locked Gold Crates. These crystals can be collected to fully craft some mounts and armors.
Here is where I'd like to address Locked Gold Crates in general. If I am not mistaken, in this update Locked Gold Crates receive a pretty substantial buff, along with the addition of a chance for Manastorm Crystals on top of that (these allow you to buy nearly any mount or glider that appears in the rotational boxes).
The sources of these Locked Gold Crates are relatively minimal consisting of major world bosses that most players simply don't have the means of accessing because the people killing them are generally speaking, at the higher end of the gear/financial spectrum (creates a snowballing factor). I recommend diversifying Locked Gold Crates as a whole through adding them as a drop from a broader group of activities such as Shadow Invasions (if anyone else has more ideas please feel free to suggest). Make it more difficult for a standalone group to entirely monopolize these items through the sheer amount of activities providing them.
Obviously, the Locked Gold Crates should not drop in the same quantity from a Shadow Invasion as say, Kraken or Red Dragon. There should still be strong incentives for players to participate in the more difficult content, where I draw the line is monopolization. Breaking up the supply chain here just a bit is warranted.
-- Obsidian
Adjusted the crafting materials for Cursed Obsidian equipment.
- Adjusted the required amount of Mercury Solution and added Renaia's Research Journal to the recipes.
Obsidian is an interesting discussion. I am all for keeping obsidian in the game and allowing people to upgrade their old eqipment in lieu of whatever historical expiration date for obsidian live had (in terms of patches). However, there is one concern I would like to voice ahead of time.
In 5.0, the patch following this one. There are items introduced called Hiram Infusions and Erenor Infusions which are derived from old obsidian gear that players no longer wish to use because Obsidian was discontinued (unable to create new pieces + upgrade old ones) - think of it like evenstone salvaging.
These infusions, when used, can grant massive amounts of experience towards Hiram and Erenor Equipment (in aggregate). By this time, if Obsidian is still able to be produced, upgraded, etc, players will have an alternative method of continually generating Hiram and Erenor experience that in my opinion should not exist.
If Hiram and Erenor infusions are to be implemented down the line (a whole other discussion), special care needs to be taken towards the fate of obsidian. Perhaps you can keep Obsidian Recipes, but make them create a variant with custom text similar to the support pack that simply disables the option to be turned into Hiram/Erenor Infusions? This way old Obsidian equipment that is truly old could be turned into infusions, but you couldn't carry out this process with newly created or upgraded items. I am curious as to how this process would work with Cloaked Brimstone Items (T7, now T4 technically) however, considering that the tag could potentially be removed after tiering up your Obsidian item from T6 > T7 (T3 > T4) and then recloaking it. Food for thought.
-- Alchemy/Cooking Recipes
Adjusted the recipes available from Apothecary's Villa.
- Mossy Pool: removed Iris, Thistle, Cornflower, and Aloe; added 1 Charcoal Stabilizer.
- Kraken's Might: removed Aloe, Cornflower, Thistle, and Iris; added 1 Charcoal Stabilizer.
- Desert Fire: removed Lavender, Mushroom, Narcissus, and Lily; added 1 Charcoal Stabilizer.
- Nui's Nova: removed Ginkgo Leaf, Lotus, Mushroom, and Lavender; added 1 Charcoal Stabilizer.
- Deluxe Sandwich: removed Barley, Garlic, Yam, and Strawberry; added 1 Charcoal Stabilizer.
- Hearty Soup: removed Barley, Tomato, Pumpkin, and Rosemary; added 1 Charcoal Stabilizer.
The gathering material changes are not a good idea in my opinion, lessens the use case for a multitude of resources (waters down the game). A charcoal sink is slightly welcomed on my part considering we still have the pre-3.5 trade system, but I understand why players would be opposed to it.
-- Dynamic Trade
Added the Dynamic Trade System:
Enough has already been said regarding this part of the update.
-- Larders
- Increased the amount of stone bricks required to a craft a larder from 5 to 10.
- Increased the amount of iron ingots required to craft a larder from 5 to 10.
Is this the patch where Larders are changed from their old size to become bundle size (smaller)? Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I couldn't find this part in the notes. If this is the case, I would be in favor of this slight increase in cost due to the fact that players will be able to generate more larders. If the sizing changes for larders have already been implemented, I wouldn't add this change.
-- Mysterious Crates
Removed the Mysterious Crates on Auroria.
While I'm not advocating for a full-on removal of the Mysterious Crates on Auroria, I do feel that they need to be addressed. Ever since these have been in the game, I've only noticed a handful of names collecting the Mysterious Crates (generally speaking). In my opinion, a number of things about them need to be changed, otherwise their removal is necessary.
1. Randomize the timers: As of right now, a vigilant player can cycle through every single spawn in a rapid succession and put them all on the same timer. This allows a player(s) to monopolize this content to a certain extent. Mysterious crates should be "mysterious", not something cycled through at an hourly interval all in quick succession to just brute force the lucky pack proc. To combat this, I suggest changing the respawn timer. I don't know the exact timer, but instead of it being fixed, for example, make it a random time interval of 3-5 hours between spawns, instead of a fixed 4 hours - again, these are just example times.
2. Increase the number of potential spawn locations:
Here is the full? list of the spawn locations for the mysterious chests. These charts aren't exactly private knowledge or anything, but I can't help but feel like this takes away from what they were meant to be. These is simply nothing "mysterious" about predetermined spawn locations, or at least this few of them! I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the devs probably won't straight up randomize the spawn locations to be located at any point in the given zone, however the amount of potential spawns should easily be tripled or quadrupled. Another idea I had was to eliminate Mysterious Crates in their current form, but potentially add the spawning of a mysterious crate to the mobs in these auroria zones (once again, not sure how "possible" this actually is from a development standpoint). This way, people would be rewarded for actually doing activities in said zones, not just doing a quick lap to check a handful of spawn locations and then porting out to the next zone.
3. Reduce the amount of gold given: There is a reason Perditas were so heavily nerfed on this server (even if it was much, much earlier in the lifetime of the server). Just talking simple facts here though, Perditas are out in the middle of the ocean more often than not, much more than mildly inconvenient in my opinion! Mysterious Crates spawn in easily accessible Auroria Zones where players quite literally have extremely little difficulty getting (also takes hardly any time). 400 gold is simply far too much gold considering these factors and the alternatives out there as it is right now. A 25-50% reduction, being 200-300 gold for the lucky pack proc, is still a satisfying reward that wouldn't completely devalue this activity in my opinion.
-- Lunafrosts
Removed Lunafrost recipes. Related Crafting Requests can be salvaged. Lunafrosts can now be found in Merchant’s, Noble’s, Jester’s, Prince’s, Queen’s, and Ancestral Crates.
Adds another (unwelcome) RNG hula hoop to jump through, the recipes should be kept - I'm fine if you want to increase the material costs of them to compensate. Not sure how you are going to maintain an incentive for opening crates here though if they 1. won't include lunafrosts, and 2. won't include archeum trees/regrade braziers.
-- Defiance
Added a new basic skill "Defiance."
Please consider lowering the cooldown on this skill from 30 minutes. I'm aware it was changed in a later patch to be a 6-7? minute cooldown... However, I think many players would be thankful if the cooldown was reduced considering this skill quite literally only resets when you die. A single 1v1, let alone group fight doesn't last more than 5 seconds - 5 minutes anyhow except in extremely rare cases.
-- Archeum Trees
In Archeum Trees, the chance for the tree to drop Archeum Shards and Archeum Crystals has been dramatically reduced. The chance for the tree to produce Dust has been dramatically increased, while the chance to produce Archeum Essence has been slightly increased. Trees will also give more Shards than previous (previous drop was between 11 and 13, new range is between 17 and 19. This is because the overall consumption of archeum in the game has decreased due to the new crafting system changes.
I would be sad to see this change. If anything, Archeum Trees should be getting a substantial buff. Not only does this bring more people/activity into auroria - but just take a look at the archeum market. We are quite literally still being propped up by the Archeum Supply of 3+ patches ago when wisps were made to convert into archeum. Have you seen starlight archeum prices? Need I say more. Someone quite literally has had the equivalent of 26,000 Starlight Archeum Essence sitting in a chest since 3.5 and won't sell it until a later patch (for good reason...) - Not trying to throw shade here, he's definitely a smart guy but considering that on any given day hardly enough moonlight/starlight archeum sells to craft even 2 ayanads, we have a problem here.
-- DGS
Delphinad Ghost Ship Stone Slab can no longer be sold to Relic Merchant, instead can be sold to Shadow Merchant on Freedich Island for Charcoal Stabilizer.
Correct me if I'm wrong on the values here. My understanding is that DGS packs when changed will now offer 50 Charcoal each instead of 100 Gold each.
You've left Exeloch DGS in the game far past the expiration date it had on live, so there are 3 Delphinad Ghosts Ships to be killed every day. The spoils from killing these bosses, in aggregate, would amount to roughly 4,500 Charcoal (as of right now the packs from these ships reward a raw 9,000 gold).
Considering the trend the administration has taken towards reducing the amount of charcoal sinks in the game and given that we still have the pre-3.5 trade system in effect, there is a massive disparity between these two values. Charcoal has historically not been worth over 2 gold each, at least not for an extended period of time. As of 8:59pm server 6/10/2020, the 7d average price for charcoal is 1.38 gold each. If we were to multiply the amount of charcoal provided from these bosses by this value, we arrive at a result of 6,210 gold - and this is assuming that the new source of charcoal has absolutely no negative impact on the market.
My suggestion is to keep Delphinad Ghost Ships at 100 Gold a pack, 3,000 Gold a boat. If you interpret these actions taken by the management of ArcheAge on the live servers to be in the spirit of nerfing DGS, then I would additionally suggest removing the Delphinad Ghost ship which spawns off of the coast of Exeloch instead of cutting the value per boat but keeping the same number of boats.