Timeless/Reverse Weapons Balancing Issue

hi guys, i didnt read many of the posts here but remember theres a difference between supply/demand and quantity supplied/demanded

 

Might i add, the 1h Reverse/Timeless Mace could use a tweak as well, the weapon's attacking speed is Normal.
Yet the 1h Reverse/Timeless Sword is Fast. RIP BW, i guess SP resetting from BW to Sword could work, but that's 40 SP from 2nd job, 90 SP from 3rd job, oh god

 

Qualitative arguments that say "it is hard to farm 45 pieces of time" are not very convincing, we simply need to look at the price of PoT. As mentioned by previous posts, the overall cost required to craft reverse weapons that are on par or greater than perf NT weapons is hilariously less than the average cost of crafting a perf NT weapon.

 

Like I said before if PoT end up being 1-2m then I'll happily concede that the current implementation is a problem. However based on the ones in FM and my own experience it's more likely they will be priced at 5-10m. Even at 5m that's 225m per craft. You can craft 5-6 NT weapons for that same price.

 

However that is only at the present moment, at the heat of a new released content. It is similar to how 6wa Icecreams sell at a whopping 60m when Summer Event just got released, versus how its only 15-20m at the end of the event.

Right now, when this new PoT got released, and all older PoTs are made void, the prices of newly hunted PoT are obviously going to be higher given than demand is more than the supply. Sooner or later, when everyone starts flooding ToT and PoTs are made more available (and we all know its only a matter of time before they do), we will see unnecessary dead content which is NeoTokyo.

Do we need this at all though? Timeless weapons are the new end-game weapons now, rewarded by killing Pink Bean. In our current pre-patch market, Dragon equipment, lv 100 weapons and NeoTokyo weapons stand at a comfortable price and value. Do we actually need these content to die unnecessarily when we can just aim for Timeless weapons at the end?

If Timeless weapons stay exclusive from killing Pink Bean, needless to say everyone who wants to join a Pink bean squad still needs an end-game weapon which is already supplied by a stable lv 100 /dragon/NT weapon market. We don't need these equipments to be made irrelevant with the accessibility of Reverse Weapons (and you know how available it is to craft this). All you need to do is literally farm/buy 45 PoT - which prices will fluctuate based on demand/supply.

No toxicity intended here but should we actually argue that the "low supply/difficulty of access of the PRESENT MOMENT PoT - right at the heat of a newly released content" is worth the permanent irrelevance/dead content of older weapons in the future, which actually achieved a stable market?

 

I see where you are coming from. However I truly don't think reverse invalidates all other options unless PoT become dirt cheap (this is the main point up for contention, if PoT ever become cheap the entire system breaks). For starters you need a NT weapon in order to craft a reverse in the first place. So by default NT can never be irrelevant. Secondly (once again price dependant) I don't think the dragon weapon market will be totally destroyed either maybe just altered (whether that's a good or bad thing is for you to decide). They still provide a far lower barrier of entry for newer/unfunded players. A huge majority of the server can't afford to 30 reverse weapons (and 30ing reverse is likely the only way you beat out most dragon weapons) and they also won't be able to buy other peoples reverse failures because they are untradeable.

There's honestly a bit too much "this could happen, because x" on both sides of the argument and the only way to see what actually is going to happen is to let it play out and make adjustments if needed.

Edit: as an example 110 claymores are 35m. On average a reverse 2h sword will only be 113 attack. Once again depending on how expensive they are to craft you probably get to boom 4-8 dragon claymores or 1 reverse. For your average player just trying to get the most attack possible the 4-8 claymores will produce better results than the 1 reverse.

 

I'm pretty sure if you use "Legendary Spirit" the weapon isn't equipped and can be upgraded and resold.. but idk how it will be in this game, although in GMS thats what people did and got to resell them scrolled.

 

Your example doesn't make sense; no one is saying anything will happen to dragon weapons. These items will stay at current price. It is NT weapons that become dead content. Right now a perfect NT weapon is worth about 70 WS + OG cost of item which translates to about 10b (10b is now what it will cost to make a reverse weapon assuming you dump 70 WS to perfect 7 slots). A perfect dragon weapon is worth about 6-6.5b. For an NT weapon you are paying 3.5b for 2 att. NT weapons are now made completely pointless because the transition for gear will be perf dragon weapon into perf reverse weapon because the marginal stat boost from NT isn't worth the excessive cost.

From that point only 2 things can happen. NT weapons will drop in price to replace dragon weapons, making dragon weapons useless OR NT weapons will stay in between the two, making the stat boost too marginal to want to pay for the extra att. Let's say NT weapons drop to 8B for a perfect weapon. Would anyone really want to make or buy one of these items?

My money is on betting that NT weapons will become dead content/worthless. There are already so few of these on the market, there is no point to going out of your way to craft these any more when dragon weapons are so much more easily attainable through crafting. Then when you're ready for your end game weapon you just go ahead and make the switch to reverse and WS 10 all 7 slots or maybe 30 the first slot if time piece comes down to the 3m range which is looking really likely. On day 1, the price is at 5m; that is not a good sign for what's to come.

EDIT: 10 minutes after I typed this someone item smega'd the first reverse equip on the server. 55 att reverse lampion. This in all likelihood will beat out any existing NT claw. Cost to craft claw: 250M (this means it would cost ~750M to end up with a 55/56 att claw since you have a 33% chance to craft a 55 or 56).

EDIT 2: I just checked the library and it looks like the actual range is 52-56, meaning you have an even higher probability to beat out an NT weapon than what the probability table I made states. Also the chance to make a 55/56 is 40% so it would only cost ~625M to make a 55/56 claw.

 

I was directly quoting someone who said "Do we actually need these content to die" in reference to dragon weapons which is what the example was about. Dragon weapons should more or less still be ok.

Like I said before NT can never die because you need NT weapons in order to craft reverse. This honestly could increase the overall value of NT weapons since if you screw up scrolling you may still be able to get 10-20m.

However I do agree with the main point of your post. The absolute top end of NT weapons will be impacted no question. Whether that's a bad thing or not depends on your view. I do feel bad for anyone who put time and effort in perfect NT weapons but those weapons will still be relevant just not perfect. My stance is reverse are kind of needed. The gap between NT and timeless from PB would be so ridiculously big otherwise. Which some of you might say is good because PB will be insanely hard to kill but I disagree. I think the middle ground is a good thing. I personally wouldn't be a fan of "if you don't have timeless your weapon has no chance to be even close to good".

 

Could I get that concession? pog

 

And now Reverse weapons have no offers, PoTs are unsold at 1.5m, everyone's just aiming for Timeless and the worst part is how perfect NT weapons took an unnecessary dip in prices
57wa claw unsold at 300m when it was a/w 800m pre-Reverse weapons.
ez predictions.

 

Sorry to derail this post OP.

Agreed. There’s just no demand for NT weapons right now. With PB, NT prices have dropped significantly. There’s a Perf NT claw listed on FM for 250m, but not one offer has been put on it. It seems like NT weapons are in a very peculiar spot, still too expensive for most players but the marginal gain is not ideal for the top players. You get a better ROI for reverse/timeless weapons.

My take on lvl 100/dragon/NT/reverse/timeless weapons:
With the current economy, attackers do not make enough mesos from HT or other bosses to justify going for a NT/reverse/timeless unless they sell leech on the side. According to akash’s post, expected profits from a 6 person HT is ~10m compared to ~30m+ a couple of months ago. Although expected earnings from HT has declined, white scroll prices have remained relatively stable at ~145m each.

Lvl 100 or Dragon Weapon

• 95% of the player base, casual players, will be fine with perfecting these weapons.
  
• Cost of completing: +4 perf (1b?) + ~30 WS

NT Weapons

• pure doodoo, the marginal attack gained doesn't justify the cost
• Cost of completing: +1 perf (833m based on 250m perf NT claw) + ~60 WS

Reverse/Timeless Weapons

• 5% or less of the player base, older players
• From what i've seen, there's not much demand for reverse weapons either
• There was initial hype for reverse weapons, but it's been diminished. Largely because groups were able to kill PB quicker than anticipated?
• Cost of completing: perf timeless (1b-2b) + ~70 WS

Currently, only dragon weapons and reverse/timeless weapons will stay relevant. If the goal is to make NT even somewhat relevant again, I feel like there needs to be a more drastic change to either PB that makes it harder for timeless weapons to be obtained or for NT coins to be farmed more easily. A combination of these two suggestions should lead to more demand for NT weapons and lead to a more natural weapon progression, lvl 100 weapon > dragon weapon > NT weapon > reverse/timeless, instead of skipping NT weapons altogether.

EDIT: included cost of completion in there. Feel free to chime in if my approximations are off.

 

Absolutely. Why go to the trouble of getting good reverse gear when so quickly timeless gear has become available ?
Perhaps just a few more months and reverse will be completely overshadowed by new timeless gear.

I don't think anyone expected PB to be defeated so quickly in ML, perhaps not even staff, which unfortunately had a much more quicker and stronger impact in the endgame gear market and less reaction time to adjust things to prevent certain gear (such as NT) to become somewhat obsolete.

If going back in time were possible I believe the best solution would've been to not release reverse gear, just timeless, and making PB more difficult to defeat. This way NT gear would still have it's place for a much longer time.

But since that's not possible we'll have to do with the current market. Maybe some ingenious ideas by players and/or staff will eventually come up to curb a bit of some of the undesirable changes.

 

I think if staff changed and customized the "Damage Reflect" timing to somewhere else then it would be a bit more of a challenge, but Damage Refelct is there at 90% of its HP. I have no idea if it does it again or not but that 90% is already pretty easy to know.. possibly customize it a bit? change when the Damage Reflect would trigger at a different percentage.

But I've never done PB so, I have no idea what I'm saying other than what I've read from Google lol.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

It starts DR at around 90% and then is on a timer after that. It’s something like every minute it spends 20 seconds in DR.

 

oh.. O_O alright

 

Can you please edit that picture and remove my HP it hurts my already fragile ego. Thanks

 

Fundamentally, I believe that the biggest problem is the production of weapons easily outpacing the production of the materials(white scrolls) needed to perfect them. If you're in a position to buy a perfect Timeless weapon for 1 bil, then you've still only spent roughly 10% of the necessary funds to finish the weapon, as the white scrolls will likely cost more than 10bil.

It's very unlikely that hundreds of WS can enter the market a week, but with ~4-6 successful PB runs a week the weapon drops from them will flood the market, leading to their price dropping to a point where eventually you'll be able to WS+30 for a slot efficiently. It'd be a bit of help but even then I'm not sure how viable it is to run PB if the weapons are capable of hitting the point of WS+30 material.

Other than perfect weapons though, reverse do help fill a niche in their accessibility, where it's easier now to create a weapon that is 20-25 attack above max dragon clean, for people who want to create their first "real" weapon. They seem functional at that point, but when the focus is on perfection then the economy has become so top heavy that any serious changes come with a whole can of Mott's worms and it's hard to come up with any solutions that don't alienate significant portions of the population.

 

To expand on this a bit, perfection is basically required due to the very nature of these weapons. Other weapons have the ability to be "decently" scrolled and then liquidated when ready to upgrade again. As both reverse and timeless are untradeable upon equip (which is a requirement to know if its leveled decently to be worth scrolling in the first place), there is zero room for improvement on these items. At the very least, if reverse is cheap enough (and with decent luck), a weapon that can last until endgame when going for perfect can be crafted. Though this means both reverse crafting materials (pieces of time and old graves) and pb raid reverse drops plummet in value to be cheap enough to use.

While the market will reach equilibrium in reverse material prices, it likely will have a long term impact on availability of scrolled weapons. As they will be fully taken out of the market upon player use, cheap reverse has a potential to dominate the market. Whether that makes well-scrolled lower level, tradeable weapons more valuable due to rarity/ability to upgrade or less valuable due to reverse being cheap/strong enough to be used long enough to justify its unsellable nature probably remains to be seen.