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I urge the team to think twice about having an expiration date on bottled spirit items.
Not everyone has the garantee to be able to play for an extended period of time.
I appreciate the idea of it, it makes sense to have a spirit expire, but when a player bottles it, it should no longer have an expiration date.
It forces players to act as soon as they find a rare spirit, which, in my opinion is terrible design.
Players should never feel forced or pressured to do anything in an MMORPG in my opinion.
If a player finds a spirit, and is for whatever reason not able to play for the coming 10 days (which really isn’t an uncommon scenario), they WILL lose it, without being able to do anything about it.
Mechanics concerning the acquisition of rare items should NEVER be timed in my opinion.
This mechanic will heavily punish people with frequent internet issues for example, or perhaps a busy work schedule.
I suggest removing the expiration date on all bottled spirit items, and setting the expiration time for regular spirits to 10 days.
The expiration date is close to perfection mechanics. That mechanics makes a lot of sense. The mechanics doesn’t force you to act as soon as possible if the spirit has dropped. It forces you to be prepared to that (spirit drop) might happen. Just save some bottles and crystals. Although, you knew about the mechanics exists and how it works, you were not prepared for the spirit to be dropped. You skipped the preparation for what ever reason it is. And of course, when the spirit has dropped, you started to feel the pressure about losing the item.
I wish ragnarok online 1 has that mechanics too, so we don’t get 20 Sting Cards sitting on the market while cost nothing.
It is totally okay to lose in-game items in certain cases. Refining, slotting, honing etc. Do not forget, that losing a card is not the end of the world. Other players also drop cards which you can buy. And the spirit that you might lose is not the only one, you will be dropping spirits further. Just make yourself prepared for that.
The mechanics is also not that hardcore, some games has much more hardcore mechanics. In L2, for example, you might drop a piece of equipment that you were wearing if you die. And that makes sense in a context. People lose the most expensive items that way.
I would change the timers a little, though. I would make it from 3 to 5 hours, and from 10 to 7 days.
The reason of why I want to increase the unbottled spirit timer is some random stuff can happen. Maintenance, unexpected bugs, irl stuff. For example, if the server die, and the administrators are asleep, it might take some time to get the server back online and that might lead to other stuff and so on. Which can make bottling in 3 hours an impossible tusk.
So yea, I would increase the unbottled timer. Maybe even to 1 day. To make it in total 8 days. 1 day for the unbottled one and 7 days for the bottled one.
But depending on how long it takes to grind the mats to enchant the card, it definitely puts people who work full time at a disadvantage. For me at least it seems unreasonable if I did not already farm the mats. Imagine gaining a really rare item and then having it taken away from you simply because you don’t have time.
Just sounds like a really frustrating user experience, I would give at least a alternate option or longer route for people who would rather take longer but be guaranteed to get the card enchanted. I do find the concept to be really cool however.
The mechanics doesn’t force you to act as soon as possible if the spirit has dropped. It forces you to be prepared to that (spirit drop) might happen.
I very much disagree, not everyone likes to look up everything on a wiki beforehand, when I play MMO’s I like experiencing things first hand, and be potentially surprised.
Use of a wiki or any other form of prior information should always be optional, and not mandatory.
“You should just be prepared”, is not a valid argument in my opinion.
Although, you knew about the mechanics exists and how it works, you were not prepared for the spirit to be dropped. You skipped the preparation for what ever reason it is. And of course, when the spirit has dropped, you started to feel the pressure about losing the item.
What are you talking about?
I only just found out about these mechanics today, what do you mean with “I knew”?
You have no idea about whether or not I was aware of how this currently works.
And again, not being aware of it is not an excuse for this working this way, that is just simply not true.
I mean, now you know. And you have paid a price for that information. The price is a potentially lost monster’s spirit. Sounds simple and logically correct. If you like to go through without any preparations, then expect that kind of things will happen more often compare to if you got prepared.
So spent a few hours on fyfe in ymir looting between 2 crystals and killing the 4 merman between the two and basically got a few bits of dust and one small crystal… If I only had basically the weekend to get the card enchanted, it might be doable but difficult. It’s faster to just farm the money and buy the crystals upright but man its gonna be rough if a spirit drops.
Alright so, after 3 days of spending a few hours (around 2/3 hours, give or take) per day mining Crystals in Ymir Caves, I managed to find 2 Medium Bruni Crystals to enchant my card with, but I think I got extremely lucky with my crystal drops, as the drop rates seem quite low for the higher grade crystals, I think the average time needed for this would definitely be a lot higher if one is less lucky on the drops.
My stance on this remains the same, I still think putting a timer on Spirits is an overly punishing and unfriendly way of doing things, like I’ve said before, in an MMO you should have the choice to work towards whatever goal you please, being forced into doing something just because you randomly find a spirit, should not ever be how it works in my opinion.
You can’t simply expect people to play a certain style because (apparently) you’re used to it. Most of players will ask about things in the chat and won’t ever open the wiki, and they shouldn’t be punished for doing that, at least not with losing a pretty rare drop by not knowing what to do.
The best way to prepare players for situations when they’re on a time limit is by explaining that situation. There’s no indication on exactly how to proceed when a spirit drops besides the “put it in a bottle to prevent a earlier loss” irrc.
Losing rare drops because of ignorance is so common in mmos. My point is, I really like the system and I think that it is not only cool/fun, but also very clever. But I think that the cave should be adjusted, which is already happening. Cards are too strong, you can’t just drop a -20 to something card and that is it. The system also has lore potential.
This is not the case of losing drops because of ignorance, because people don’t have as many hours in the day as a student or someone not working. I think you are misunderstanding the initial problem behind this system and confusing it for ignorance. You want this game to be brutal and unforgiving so you oppose any idea that goes against the grain.
You should not lose any rare drop period, due to not having enough time to play.
Maybe a thing that MIGHT help in the case of someone that can’t play as much as someone who can spend hours farming crystals is to only decrease the timer if that character is online (I’ll leave adjusting which would be the new timer to you peeps lol), so players would be able to farm crystals when they can and not be punished for not having “enough” free time by just using another character.