Discussion on balance changes to sweeping.

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Intro

I'm writing this post in order to start the discussion for the underlying issues mid to end-game players are facing due to the consequences of the recent "balance" changes. Specifically, I'd like to dive deep into the nerf that prevents players from using a secondary character to loot mesos - also known as sweeping.


The reason for this nerf according to the patch notes was to address "the disproportionate demand vs. supply of [CS/WS] scrolls" and "the birth of lots of different strategies that really pushed the rate at which mesos are generated. At the heart of all these strategies were mages and Meso Up mules."

Counter Arguments
Let's begin by addressing the points that are trying to be achieved by this nerf.

1. Bring meso making rates down to manageable rates
   
   
2. Make non-mage meso making strategies feel better (relatively)
   
   
3. Eliminate unhealthy gameplay where players were earning disproportionate amount of mesos with minimal movement
   
   
4. Discourage mule story
   
   
5. Make changes without negatively affecting QoL

Spoiler: Point 1. Bring meso making rates down to manageable rates

Getting rid of sweeper mules isn't making meso rates down to manageable rates but rather creating a greater gap between the players who invest into multi-mages versus the conventional player who doesn't. For example, a player that has 2 well-funded arch-mages selling leech at 5-6 can easily outperform say a bishop selling leech at skeles or any other meta leech seller at ulu2, petris, etc.

Leech prices have lowered significantly over the past year or several months. In my opinion, it's heavily influenced by RWT leech sellers, who drive the leech market down. In order to compensate, people have been driven to rely on alternative approaches to increase their rates, one of which is the utilization of MU mules or sweeper mules. As a result, they're able to sell leech at competitive rates, but also reduce the gap between multi-mage leech selling.

However, with the recent changes to sweepers, many conventional players lose a significant portion of their revenue and are being "forced" to turn to multi-mage tactics such as selling 5-6 leech.

Spoiler: Point 2. Make non-mage meso making strategies feel better (relatively)

Handicapping a subset of players reduces the alternatives to viable meso making strategies. Many of which are incomparable to selling 5-6 leeches.

"Why would a person farm at a map with a warrior when farming with a mage requires much less effort AND much higher rewards?"

This isn't a very valid argument. Mages are AoE type classes and they are designed to be efficient at farming. Would you use a screw driver to hammer in nails? Let's not compare apples and oranges.

Spoiler: Point 3. Eliminate unhealthy gameplay where players were earning disproportionate amount of mesos with minimal movement

This point seems to be directly targeted at multi-mage farming. But have we considered all the other affected players? Players who are striving towards the endgame - those who sell ulu2, skeles, petris - have all been affected by the change. Not allowing individuals to loot their mesos on an alternate character has greatly diminished one’s ability to make mesos efficiently.

Saying "players were earning a disproportionate amount of mesos with minimal movement" is not very accurate. Conventional leechers are constantly moving and rotating with their mages. By sweeping, they keep their EPH rates high, while keeping their rates competitive.

Now let's look at multi-mage. Multi-mage farming is more difficult than it appears. It requires attention to detail and coordination. Not only this, having four mages, MP washing them, leveling them to 4th job, doing all the quests in order to get your ultimates is very time consuming. There's also a very small player base that multi-mage farm. Although sweepers play a major role in multi-mage farming, removing it severely impacts the meta-leeching player base, which as a whole represents a greater majority.

Spoiler: Point 4. Discourage mule story

This change does not only discourage sweepers, but it kills it entirely.

In the patch notes, the change description describes that "Players in Dark Sight or Oak Barrel are no longer able to loot using pets." In my opinion, the changes should have stopped at this point with the following addition:

• Level restricting characters that can loot in a map based off of exp leeching requirement

Even without adding this in, removing dark sight/barrel sweeping already creates a barrier to entry because you need to have a high level character who can sweep instead of a lvl 16 character, and if it's not shad/nl you have to spend more time repositioning and spend more money repotting.

This will prevent low level sweeping characters in high level maps which require minimal investment.

Spoiler: Point 5/ Make changes without negatively affecting QoL

I believe the intention of this change was to affect meso farming without negatively impacting the QoL of the game. However there have been several negative effects, and this was explained well by Cowbelle in this post. She highlights the negative effects to QoL for the entire player base, such as making mesos harder to loot, and making items harder to loot in PQ situations.

Also, this affected parties with shads using pickpocket in HT; since the bishop was the only person who could feasibly loot the pickpocket mesos, almost all the meso goes to waste now.

Summary

With the recent changes, players are given very few alternatives to make mesos at a reasonable rate. WS/CS prices will not be greatly affected by this change. This change increases the gap between money making methods like 5-6 leeching and single-mage leeching. As a result, single-mage leechers will take significantly more time to achieve their goals. It's interesting to say, but the only unaffected method is 5-6 leeching.

Although removing sweepers mules discourages multi-mage farming, it severely handicaps the conventional player-base. Reducing the amount of viable "meso-making" strategies without providing any other real alternatives or buffs is encouraging unhealthy gameplay rather than discouraging it.