We offer a wide variety of items that are meant to appeal to different play styles and schedules. As noted, if old-style orbs or otherwise standard enhancive items make more sense for your play-style or schedule, then those are probably the right match for you. However, we plan to offer new style orbs more frequently and in different circumstances, so even if your schedule is more pinched, you still may find new-style orbs to be of benefit to you, even once the residual bonus is reached.

Coase

I would love for Enhancive orbs to drop in the treasure system, maybe taking the place of some of the horde (hoard? either could apply...) of "tiny <pick a color> pearls" that I keep running across....
(For those not in the know, essentially every "tiny pearl" will be an orb gem.)

>>If these are more available, and not just behind the $50.00 Ebon Gate pay wall, then my point may become a bit more moot.
It does sound like the fusion shaman will be back at something comparable with the Firebird, which was general access, so hopefully things will be more accessible that way.

A question about this new system though. Will we be seeing more specialized things like a forging apron that enhances all the relevant stats in a very nice manner but that only gives the bonus within the forge? It sounded like it's more possible for negatives like that to not be avoided, but it would be good to know if this is the sort of thought being considered.


_ _ _
Speaking bluntly to you, Auvreaian says, "Your ancestory is wishing they were Ashrim."

I went ahead and waited several days before checking this thread, assuming it would be flooded by essays telling the staff how to run the game by certain players in particular.

Thanks everyone for not letting me down on this one.

I'm especially amused that a lore dagger for spellups is being included as a grievance for a 25% markup for recharging costs. Such a dagger would be held for what, 30 to 60 seconds a day and need to be charged once a year?

>In a graphical MMORPG, there are pretty graphics to provide visual entertainment during increasing levels of grindiness or tedium. I cannot see how it is "fun" to watch endlessly screen scrolling text via a script. People do this in GS not because it is "fun", but because they want the end prize/goal. Furthering the direction of the game to promote script gaming/grinding is detrimental to the entire game, promotes no interaction, and literally drives away players who have no desire to script everything.

lol, what.

I can't see why it's fun to sit back and watch as the screen scrolls by and a script runs around hunting for me either, which is why I don't script hunt. I'm not sure how encouraging people to script hunt to get the sweetest gear (which is apparently what you do) encourages people to interact with the game either. Personally, when I want to interact with people in a RPG, I go RP with people and when I want to hunt, I interact with the game by hunting things.

I have sympathy for people who can't manually hunt because they have mobility issues or whatever, but most people do not have to script hunt. If you choose to script hunt and find the game to be a boring grind as a result, that's your fault and there's a really simple solution to your problem.

You've missed the point entirely.

>I'm not sure how encouraging people to script hunt to get the sweetest gear (which is apparently what you do)

False.

>If you choose to script hunt and find the game to be a boring grind as a result, that's your fault and there's a really simple solution to your problem.

No, the game has become a boring grind if one does not script hunt, as I don't.

>No, the game has become a boring grind if one does not script hunt, as I don't.

I'm sorry, did you not say "I cannot see how it is "fun" to watch endlessly screen scrolling text via a script."?

Alright, everybody - buckle in! I've been staying out of this conversation to this point, for personal reasons (like very little fusion gear).

But I do want to emphasize a point made.

>>the game has become a boring grind if one does not script hunt

I'm not sure I'm 100% there yet, but ever since the implementation of Alchemy (maybe before? But this would be the watershed event in my view) we seem to have headed down a major systems implementation path where grinding is the expectation. And I am concerned that there will one day be a change which will slam my needle over to the 100% mark, and bend it beyond repair.

We had this with Enchant and pools for a time. That got addressed, actually expensing 'grind' for 'time'. But truly - if one looks across most recent major systems implementations, I can't fully support 'has become', but am somewhat concerned personally that 'might become' will flip over the edge.

And yes, I know - one need not enchant, pursue alchemy, ensorcell, gather enhancives, participate in fusion, do CMAN tasks, or spend time in any of a host of other activities that our current systems support to extend character abilities and general 'worthiness'.

But I ask, where's the 'fun' in that?

Doug

It's a more elegant design if fusion gear doesn't need to be removed after hunts to save a charge or two. Maybe the # of charges in new enhancive items can be raised a bit to compensate, and all enhancive gear works the same way.

I find the "grindiest" systems in GS4 tend to be ported over from DragonRealms, where most things are more of a grind but it's because you're learning different skills as you enter multiple commands (which is the whole point). Scripting is much more essential there, though. I agree with Fleurs that GS should be perfectly playable without scripts. It's a bit of a stretch, but ideally there would be little to gain from using them.

>I find the "grindiest" systems in GS4 tend to be ported over from DragonRealms, where most things are more of a grind but it's because you're learning different skills as you enter multiple commands (which is the whole point). Scripting is much more essential there, though. I agree with Fleurs that GS should be perfectly playable without scripts. It's a bit of a stretch, but ideally there would be little to gain from using them.

I feel as those people who capped before lich should get a special title.

>>(Emailing Wyrom, most likely.)

Heh.

---

Wyrom, PM

I think jumping from a new version of fusion that requires any maintenance to this broader discussion of the amount of grind in the game, scripting, etc, is a huge stretch and not very short of Chicken Little with the Sky is Falling. It's a quite standard slippery slope argument I see often being made that's just pure fallacy. You'll also note how much it clogs up the relevant discussions and derails the thread (which I'm pretty sure is a large part of the intent of such tactics).

I never really used fusion because, even much prior to 2014, I could tell it was a massively overpowered system that was fairly broken, and I was expecting it would be significantly down-tweaked. If you see an overly powerful system, you are free to use it and get the most out of it you can, but you should recognize the power in the system, and wonder to yourself if this was what whoever designed it had in mind. You don't even need to think about things if you don't want, but don't come acting like this is some huge surprise!

Keep in mind that these pending down tweaks are going to make everyone's hard work who got nice fusion sets more valuable because they are grandfathering you in to the new system. So don't come back with old "oh poor us our work and money are being pooed all over blah blah blah". No! They are planning to put into a place a system that barely affects your old gear if you follow some simple rules, and your investment is going to grow significantly in value! Staff has bent over backwards to accommodate the major fusion users.

The people most affected by the fusion changes just now are the ones who were abusing it in the first place. Holding a fusion dagger to cast a few defensive spells or Ensorcell is to me obviously outside the scope of what was imagined. People build up fusion sets for tasks A-Z large and small. Down the road of course, once the new system rolls in, a few bad apples have spoiled the bunch, just like we saw with a sorcerer spell recently and a feud between two players.

Complain all you want, but if you all weren't so min/max happy and hungry for even more power, probably fusion would never have been deemed broken. Get a mirror if you want to gripe about it, seriously.

>>I feel as those people who capped before lich should get a special title.

Me! Me me! .townhop used to be my primary script, and that was it. A few hunting macros. Tired fingers.

~Liia
APM, Events & World Development

Dear My Favoritest Liia,
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my barbie-loving soul can reach... (even when you set me on fire)
~Issalya

>I still have .sbc in my scripts folder. Still comes in handy on computers I haven't bothered to install lich on.

Or if you want to show a colleague what "spaghetti code" really means.

Fusion was never deemed broken publicly until last fall.

Need to overhaul to add monetization hooks to fusion 2.0.

"but it's still a complaint about fees"

Well, no to complain is to express dissatisfaction. I believe the only dissatisfaction i've expressed, is about the possibility that orb removal would be a LIVE service. Specifically, I put please, please, please tell me the merchant orb removal service will be automated like the shaman and not a live service. And I got the disappointing response on that.

So, I am not complaining about the $$$ for the event for merchant service, I am saying dont make me wait in line!!! So basically its a complaint about TIME, not money.


I do agree with you that others have complained about the $$$, I am only addressing my comments.

Personally, the method of removing orbs without damage will be very important to me. I don't want it to be a live service where 10 people get spun. Too limited. As for fusion 2.0, I'll just steer completely clear of it and go to events to remove old style orbs when needed. This really does need to be automated like the shaman, please.

In my opinion, the primary naysayers are the ones who complain, quite vividly, about nearly everything.

There's a little thing I learned many years ago, to pick and choose your battles. If you complain and say that all these little things are "The worst thing ever," the it somewhat minimizes the value of your complaint. I'm not saying your complaint doesn't have merit, but human nature is to sort of flag that person as a constant complainer, that will complain over everything no matter what "we" do.

So, that said, here's my take on fusion -- I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong, perhaps it will put a different perspective for some, or someone will correct mine.

Some changes were made, which might be viewed as inconvenient for some, in order to allow changes to make it better in the future, via the ability to add scripts, or whatever to add to it. Does this include padding? Bubble flares/Ithzir flares? How does new fusion compare with old fusion in terms of PC enchant? Did I miss anything?

Quote:

>In my opinion, the primary naysayers are the ones who complain, quite vividly, about nearly everything.

+1