Remove ws/cs from gachapon

Other posts have suggested removing ws/cs from gachapon without addressing some of the core issues that come with the implementation of this idea. I have identified the following core issues and hope to address them with this suggestion.

1. Removing ws/cs from gachapon removes an important pathway to help new players to the server get jump started. Since ws/cs would only be accessible by content level 100+, new players lose a vital source of income in the early stages of gameplay without anything to compensate.
2. The overall Pcoin and ws/cs supply to the server as a whole drops, again without any compensation, lowering the ability to create high tier equipment. This inflates the value of previously created legacy equipment and gives an implicit advantage to older players without any catchup mechanics available for newer players.
3. The only reliable way of obtaining ws/cs at any given time (outside of a couple events per year) is through Pcoin conversion, imposing a heavy meso sink on the server, potentially causing excessive deflation.

In order to address these three core issues, I am proposing a new conversion and currency system. The goal of this new system are as follows:

1. Provide some level of compensation for new players so that the overall EV of grinding remains the same as currently.
2. Maintain current levels of ws/cs supply so as not to disrupt the price of Pcoins or Pcoin dependent equipment.
3. Give alternate paths to obtaining ws/cs that isn't strictly reliant on meso conversion to avoid the potential for deflation.

The proposed system is supposed to be simple and sleek. It is important that it remains as streamlined and easy-to-understand as possible so that new players to the server are not confused by unnecessarily convoluted or unexpected information compared to the experience they are anticipating. The new player experience is vital to player retention and should not require extra effort due to the implementation of this sytem.

With that being said, let's jump into it!

The new system revolves around multiple intermediate currencies and exchanges in order to avoid exploitation by current gachapon farming strategies, implementing alternative ways of obtaining ws/cs or ws/cs intermediates through grinding without opening the door to multifarming.

The first of these currencies will be called "Mysterious Shards" and can be dropped by any monster and looted according to the following restrictions:

1. A Shard can drop from any monster when the "killer" (the player dealing the most damage to the monster from the highest overall damage share party, or "whiting" player) is within X levels of the monster, where:
   Code:

   X = Floor((log10(Y) + 1 ) * 5)

   and Y is the level of the monster.
2. The Mysterious Shard can only be looted by the killer and must be manually picked up, and cannot be picked up by a Pet.
3. Mysterious Shards do not override current drop table mechanics and will be dropped separately as a bonus item.
4. The rate at which Mysterious Shards drop will fluctuate based on how much time has passed since the last Mysterious Shard has dropped on the server across all maps and channels, increasing logarithmically per millisecond as a form of global bad luck protection. The formula for the drop rate will be a closely guarded secret that only I will have access to. The overall drop rate for Mysterious Shards should present a similar supply of Prestigious Coins to that of those generated currently by gachapon.

These Mysterious Shards can then be converted into Mysterious Raffle Tickets, which can be redeemed for Mysterious Pouches through the Mysterious Raffle. It costs 100 Mysterious Shards to create one Mysterious raffle Ticket, which can be used at the Mysterious Raffle to award 1 random Mysterious Pouch of any default size, weighted more heavily towards the smaller sizes (Pouch 1 and 2) with Pouch 5 being exceedingly rare, similar to Event Raffle rates. The Mysterious Raffle can be accessed from any Prestigious Shop (located in Henesys and Temple of Time) after completing a short prequest that involves investigating the source of Mysterious Shards.

For the Mysterious Raffle prequest, the player will begin in the Prestigious Shop in Henesys, before travelling to the Prestigous Shop in Temple of Time, followed by speaking to key NPCs in El Nath, Magatia, Lith Harbor, NLC, Showa Town, Ludibrium, and at the end of Zakum Jump Quest. There will also be intermediate steps where the player will be tasked with killing 1,000 of a certain type of monster and collecting various ETC such as Star Rock. This prequest should be fairly quick so as not to overly burden new players, and should only take around 20 hours or so.

Mysterious Raffle Tickets can be converted at any time from Mysterious Shards by an NPC in Kampung Village in Malaysia.

This system should address the first two issues raised at the beginning of the post, so now the final addition to tackle the third issue.

Every time the player enters 1 drawing of the Mysterious Raffle, they will also recieve 1 Mysterious Dust. Each Mysterious Dust can be used at Prestigious Shops in Henesys/Temple of Time in lieu of the 10 million meso cost when converting to WS/CS. This means that over time as players grind they will gain the ability to convert 100 Prestigious Coins to WS/CS at no additional cost.

This system also should tackle multifarming as players too high above a monster's level can no longer farm ws/cs as Mysterious Shards will not drop for them. The goal of this aspect is to push players towards bossing away from farming as they reach higher levels, encouraging the community aspect of ML and incentivizing players to participate in cooperative activity rather than farming solo.

However, there will be one caveat to the level restriction in order to avoid detrimental side effects to Leech income and Leech availability, a staple mechanic for the server. Mysterious Shards will still drop for high level 4th job mages exclusively under the following restrictions:

1. The "killer" must be a 4th Job Ice Lightning Archmage, Fire Poison Archmage, or Bishop.
2. The "killer" must have some form of Holy Symbol applied to them and all other characters in the party. If any character in the party does not have Holy Symbol active, normal Mysterious Shard drop level restrictions will apply.
3. There must be at least 1 other character in the party gaining EXP that is fully AFK. This character cannot move or take any action. Any movement or action from this character will disable Mysterious Shards dropping for players outside the normal level restrictions.
4. The 4th job mage exception will only be applied to the following maps:
   
   Code:

   Kerning City Subway: Line 1 <Area 1>
   Zipangu: Inside Ninja Castle
   Kerning City Subway: Line 2 <Area 1>
   Kerning City Subway: Line 2 <Area 3>
   Zipangu: The Secret Spa (M)
   Zipangu: The Secret Spa (F)
   Ghost Ship 1
   Ghost Ship 2
   Crimsonwood Mountain: Lower Ascent
   Taiwan: Star Avenue South Section
   MesoGears: Wolf Spider Cavern
   Malaysia: Fantasy Theme Park 3
   Singapore: Ulu Estate II
   Singapore: Ulu Estate III
   Singapore: Ulu City Center
   Leafre: Nest of a Dead Dragon
   Mini Dungeon: The Restoring Memory
   China: Sutra Depository 5-6 F

   While some level of multimaging will be possible with this, the detriment is considered acceptable in order to avoid hurting Leechers and upsetting the established balance of the server.

These additional mechanics and systems should hopefully alleviate pressure on the server due to gachapon farming strategies without significantly changing the experience for non-multifarm players. The new player experience and the existence of leech should be largely untouched and the supply of both Pcoin and ws/cs should remain relatively stable. With these changes, we can hopefully put a stop to the addition of "Remove ws/cs from gachapon" threads once and for all.


Additional information:
Mysterious Shards are ETC items that have a maximum stack size of 3 and are Untradeable.
Mysterious Raffle Tickets are One-of-a-Kind ETC items and Untradeable.
Mysterious Dust are One-of-a-Kind ETC items and Untradeable.

 

You raise a good point. Now that you've identified it, I agree there is likely more room for additional intermediate currencies.

 

I pulled one, and know of one other person who did not. We can extrapolate from this that on average half of new players will pull a ws/cs as part of the new player experience.

 

NX struggles are merely part of the new player experience.

 

Hoarding isn’t real, it can’t hurt you.

 

What a strange coincidence!

 

Wow what an insightful thread. Thank you for sharing, I’m glad I know about this thread now! Very helpful, had no idea this suggestion already existed.