The economy, and a few things that could be done to fix it.

[saetarshadowflare]

So recently i have noticed that EA's and IWD's are harder to spawn than RoE's. Oh and reducing the price of diamonds was great IN THEORY, but theory are treacherous things that like to bite one in the bum at a moments neglect.

While the idea of new dungeons and new monsters that drop decent gear and are a challenge to kill is all fun and well, GK does not possess the manpower to do it quickly, thus resulting in low player count and lack of interest by new players to even bother playing longer than a few hours.

However, for those willing to start anew, i think there should be a way for them to get geared up to at least a decent level.

How? Well, revamping the alchemy system is a great start. Plenty of people use it, and make almost no money off of it aside from DoPV. Many items that are considered "rare" could be alchable without too many complaints, and even if there were complaints, they wouldn't last long. Sure some things are sacred, like many of the weapons, but armors...not so much.

But, if that is not to everyones liking, why not improve the stats on the gear we can craft? Whether it be trough alch or shop crafting, the gear new players can make without needing help from others and lots of hours is pretty terrible, most of it being statless or having useless stats, like sabre of glamdre or HSoD. I'm not saying add +1 str dex and con to every item in the game, but making it so people could actually acquire more valuable items that would improve their experience in the game would attract new players and bring older players back.

Thoughts?

[LordSquirt]

I noticed that as a player who just started to play GK it's pretty hard to get any decent gear as long as you don't know someone. Sure, the GK community is pretty nice and help you out, however, that only lasts so long. It's hard for new players to get some decent stuff.

[cyan3]

Originally Posted by LordSquirt

I noticed that as a player who just started to play GK it's pretty hard to get any decent gear as long as you don't know someone. Sure, the GK community is pretty nice and help you out, however, that only lasts so long. It's hard for new players to get some decent stuff.

I used to give out decent items to newer players such as alchemy swords/armours but I stopped because I'm running out of resources to make new items.

[cbk1994]

Reducing the spawn rate of EAs/IWDs doesn't really strike me as a brilliant move. Anyone who has been playing for more than a few months already has all of their stuff +12'd and IWD'd. The only people it helps are the rich, and the only people it hurts are the poor who are still working to get new armor/weapons, and working on enchanting/improving these items.

The changing of the lord spawns was also a pretty poor idea. It was one of the reasons I stopped playing back in the summer (had been playing for the weeks prior). Again, all it does it help the people who have already leveled up and hurt those who want to level up.

GK right now is built to favor those with lots of good items and hurt those who are just starting. Limiting EAs and IWDs doesn't really change the game at this point. It would be a decent move if everyone's armor/weapon had been reset, or if the game was just starting, but not now.

[Clockwork]

Originally Posted by cbk1994

GK right now is built to favor those with lots of good items and hurt those who are just starting.

I agree, especially for events such as sparring. Who doesn't expect the same people to win every time and when yet another rare piece of gear (that you usually can't get any other way than paying an insane amount of dias) to help them win again the next time?

How about reducing the costs of everything by releasing all sorts of items in the form of rare monster drops ( probably lords only, since most everything else can be killed in masses easily), quests, rare store items...

Lower costs means more people will have items, and more people can afford the items. More people can obtain the better gear without sucking up to someone who -might- sell it or someone whom might quit and give it away. If more people could have the better gear, more people could win the events and things like core battles and war's wouldn't be decided by "oh they have craigus, and john...they'll win"

[MajinDragon]

The lower class are definitely oppressed in Graal Kingdoms. It's a sad fact and we do need change. But the availability of good items stems from a greater problem, lack of content. And this I'm afraid cannot be solved overnight, and with the current manpower at Tig's disposal, probably not even in the next year.

I do agree that the EA/IWD stock lowering was a bad move, because of reasons others have outlined. Experienced, older players will not feel the change at all because all their gear is already fully enchanted. Hell i have almost all my wizzy hats +12'ed. The only ones truly hurt are new players who need that -30ac to start hunting lords (which are now harder to find). I did suggest putting EA's and IWD's in the event shop as craftable scrolls; 1 event coin + 3blank scrolls = 3ea's or 3iwd's. That would have kept them in plenty supply and their value would have been kept stationary at 1/3 of an ec. So new players could atleast have a chance to ea their gear everyday through luck based events like musical chairs/lucky altars/raffle.

[Sam]

Originally Posted by MajinDragon

The lower class are definitely oppressed in Graal Kingdoms. It's a sad fact and we do need change. But the availability of good items stems from a greater problem, lack of content. And this I'm afraid cannot be solved overnight, and with the current manpower at Tig's disposal, probably not even in the next year.

I am an older player, and I feel the change! I am interested to do new stuff done from the alchemy.
Not to be in the state, just to improve my armor because EA's/IWD's are rarely to find in shops is very bad!
As mentioned above the older players do not worry, they have their items or get EA's, dias, and whatever for blessing or trade some of the stuff which they got in events.
Not everybody is interested in events, especially new players are taken with learning or still too weakly or inexperienced to take part in events successfully.

[saetarshadowflare]

Well, nothing can really be solved overnight, save trade reversals. But any and all ideas to improve the overall economy are good insight to have.

Lords need to be located at fixed places again. That made it easier for new players to find them and kill them, now that they run all over hell, it's discouraging to even look for them.

Lords should drop something of value...don't care if its dias or sapphires or ea's. This way killing them not only helps people level up, but make a bit of money.

East haunted house needs more skeletons. Alot more, since they seem to have the best drop rate for gems and are easier to farm than west HH because of the huge number of monsters in there. Course dest scrolls aren't expensive, but it would be nice to just have somewhere else to farm, sitting in west HH spamming scrolls has to get boring.

Addition of a new dungeon with slightly stronger monsters that have reasonable drop rates on better than average items. Sure the crypt was fun, but it only allowed the one drop, which was a very nice dagger, and now we can't even get that anymore. Add some monsters that drop less coveted but still nice gear even if its just recolors of what we already have with better stats, since appearance isn't everything to everyone.

[Sam]

Originally Posted by saetarshadowflare

Lords need to be located at fixed places again. That made it easier for new players to find them and kill them, now that they run all over hell, it's discouraging to even look for them.

We had that for a while, but it was changed back to the current (much better) way.
If they would stay at one fixed spot players would stand there all day long and wait for the next lord spawing.

What I'd like to see fixed is the message of the npc's telling you where they currently are, so you can walk to that place and kill them.

Lords should drop something of value...don't care if its dias or sapphires or ea's. This way killing them not only helps people level up, but make a bit of money.

New players are barely able to kill them (alone as single player).
they drop something of value: items to trade for getting golden keys.

East haunted house needs more skeletons. Alot more, since they seem to have the best drop rate for gems and are easier to farm than west HH because of the huge number of monsters in there. Course dest scrolls aren't expensive, but it would be nice to just have somewhere else to farm, sitting in west HH spamming scrolls has to get boring.

It's not the (only) purpose to get gems and maps by killing skeletons and other monsters, you also get exp. and monster parts can be improved with spell identify (gives you also exp and improves the value when you sell them in shops).

I'd like to see different monsters in the lower maps. Maybe instead of Rexes some bears.
Also we could get a new strong monster type: Dragons. They could fly around main and should only get killed with Bows, crossbows, spears and some spells.
This would also improve the alchemy game part (like ironbolt wooden arrow of Slay Dragon or cross bow of Thunder).

[saetarshadowflare]

New maps that give good exp at around 60 phys/wis/magic would be nice.

Lords should stay the hell out of dungeons, that's just irritating for people farming keys and new players cant ever find them.

Exp from HH's is crap once you have about 15 in any skill you use to kill them, probably less than that even. maybe west HH should be changed and made harder so more exp is granted and more items drop, just to appease the mid level players.

[MajinDragon]

Originally Posted by Sam

We had that for a while, but it was changed back to the current (much better) way.
If they would stay at one fixed spot players would stand there all day long and wait for the next lord spawing.

What I'd like to see fixed is the message of the npc's telling you where they currently are, so you can walk to that place and kill them.

The current way is worse in my opinion. In the rare occasions that i do see lords, they are often grouped together, three or four lords at the same location. This was possible with the old system, but with ~22 locations it was unlikely. I thought about whether fixing the lord location npc's to give more precise locations to cater to the new spots would actually solve much but it wouldn't if new players find three grouped together.

Originally Posted by Sam

New players are barely able to kill them (alone as single player).
they drop something of value: items to trade for getting golden keys.

Well nowdays sure, since EA's are a luxary. And those are items of value to experienced players, not newbies. Consider the difficulty a new player would have in understanding the process of the escort quests. Don't forget gold key hunting is a race where the quickest and most skilled are able to find and return escorts. New players need items that they can instantly trade, items of value in the economy.

To be honest, i'd like to see the Bomy lord drop Spiked Shield with a very low drop rate. The shield is not that great to be honest because it only offers ac and dmg. dmg is overrated by he majority but is a proven useless stat for higher levels, but amazingly useful to low levels.

Other items that the other lords would drop could be:
Plague Treaders (new, glok)
Mercury belt (mushroom)
Lucky Grips (new, bunny)

Originally Posted by Sam

It's not the (only) purpose to get gems and maps by killing skeletons and other monsters, you also get exp. and monster parts can be improved with spell identify (gives you also exp and improves the value when you sell them in shops).

The experience gained from haunted houses is petty, but i don't like the idea of low level dungeons farmed by the higher level aristocrats.

[Sam]

I general I agree with you, but don't forget new players can make their first helmet from bomy horn or mushroom. I remember I was proud when I got my bomy lord helmet as noob

[Soala]

ya same for me lol ssooooooo proud making first helmet ever, took me ages to get those damn 12 horns !!!

[MajinDragon]

Originally Posted by Sam

I general I agree with you, but don't forget new players can make their first helmet from bomy horn or mushroom. I remember I was proud when I got my bomy lord helmet as noob

I still remember the bomy helmet, but their are craftable alternatives that require ~two gold coins worth to make. In any case those bomy helmets are too easy to make and have no trade value, by making them very rare drops it would see the beginning of profitable (just because you made 1 diamond doesn't mean you made a mentionable profit) levelling aswell as actual equipment drops.

[saetarshadowflare]

Either way, there needs to be more variant gear so that people don't all have to save up for a gale, or stick with an ugly pmop because they will just never afford gale.

Diversity would cause a drastic change in the economy.

Also the EC shop NEEDS to be changed. It's been the same way for about 2 years now I believe. Would be nice to see a different setup of items.