Discussion on balance changes to sweeping.

DISCLAIMER: Writing as a player and not as a member of staff

Thank you for your write-up, I see you spent a lot of time on it and I really appreciate it!!

Can you elaborate a bit more on what you consider a "reasonable" rate of mesos? I think that would be good for the discussion moving forward what the playerbase think it is.

 

Its somewhat arbitrary where to draw the line, but I think the ballpark of 10m+/hr can be considered a reasonable rate of progression.

 

The meso loot change actually does satisfy points 1 to 4. Its just that the single client mage population are the ones who are taking the hit (btw, this is probably the segment of ML population that farms the majority of mesos on ML).

Also, I think its very unfair to include 5-6 dual client mage leech in this discussion since staff is focused on trying to reduce inflation. Selling 5-6 leech removes mesos from circulation, whereas every other method of farming / leeching monsters adds mesos to circulation. At 5-6, you burn more mesos in pots than you bring in from npc equips / meso bags. Mesos earned from selling leech came from other players (not generated) and is also taxed away.

Basically, the loot change will probably achieve lessening inflation, but the players getting "nerfed" are not the multi mage players and the wealth disparity will probably continue to increase.

 

Taking current WS/CS prices into account, I'd say the sweet spot is a maximum of around 30m/hr. In other words, 6 to 7 hours of farming per scroll. When compared to the amount of real-world currency that can be obtained in 6 to 7 hours of work, it still seems a bit ridiculous, but I think it's a fair foundational compromise.

It's probably also a good idea to collect data regarding meso generation and its impacts on inflation from now on. As it stands, I'm not convinced we have enough evidence to pinpoint excess meso generation as the driving force behind inflation.

This would appear to be corroborated by the fact that the ongoing "inflation" seems to affect WS/CS prices exclusively. Surely people are spending their money on other things too?

 

I AGREE

 

Exactly this, I think combating inflation and lessening the wealth disparity are two independent issues. The multi-client mages can just transition to 5-6 and maintain their generation of mesos while the single client mages suffer disproportionally.

 

TFW attempting to nerf the 1% leads to more harm against the 99%

 

the solution that nerfs the 1% and not the other 99% is map changes.
like removal of safe spots in shaolin, each meta map will need to examined for issues like safe spots for ulti casting and mob respawn locations but understand that this will take time.

 

I agree strongly with cowbelle's post. I personally hate having clutter on the map, and this just causes huge build up of mesos everywhere. You end up missing a lot of drops because you can't see the ground. The pets are all bugged out because they are still trying to loot all the mesos on the ground. They will spend more time trying to pick up the unlootable mesos over my drops. Most of the event drops can't even be seen at all. We have already had some new players mention they have issues looting because it doesn't make sense not to be able to.

 

The only thing I see as reasonably for looting with a "sweeper" would be to make it an active player that kills monsters in the map.
So at least people partying together can loot each other mesos.

The problem we can see with this is that it makes level-gated sweeper meta for endgame mages where they can just get a NL/Shad and just tap kill some mobs while casting ulti with their mages just to keep the meso looting "privilege".

 

If I were to have my way with the changes, it would be in three parts:

• Reduce the efficacy of % pots on mages to increase the size of the meso sink for mages all around. Ultimates are extremely strong and were initially considered balanced by its high mana spend. In a meta where 30k mp mages are the norm, this mana cost-to-meso generation needs to be reconsidered. It could be done by either increasing the mana cost of ultimates or by decreasing the effectiveness of % pots on mage MP.
• Slightly reduce the drop rate of mesos for mage ultimates all around. And by slightly I mean very slightly.
• Stop meso looting in dark sight/barrel, but allow for manual looting from within the party. This will stop people from afk looting on their sweepers by creating more sweepers. Personally, I think manually looting mesos qualifies as good enough effort to justify its reward, which seems to be balance team's point of contention.

I'm not sure how feasible this is from a coding perspective. I also understand that it's out of balance team's M.O. to roll out with layered implementations in order to resolve one issue since it'll be more difficult to assess impact from causation. However, the slow-rolling of singular, critical implementations seem to be causing more grievances than not, especially in a community where the meta is changing all the time.

Lastly - I think Shaolin 5-6 is still way too over powered. It's setting a standard for exp AND meso accumulation that is negatively impacting all alternatives, and it's further exacerbating the decline of server health by forcing a top-heavy, end-game population.

I think the problem right now is that there really is no clear cut way to define what a "healthy" economy is. White scrolls increasing in price is inevitable without drastically increasing its supply, to which we would have an unhealthy impact of power creep with end-game perfect weapons. Sure, inflation could accelerate the rise of white scroll prices, but surely there are other factors, too? Some people find hoarding white scrolls as a surefire way to increase their future wealth. Does this, too, not increase the price of white scrolls?

In its current state, the best time to buy white scrolls is during events when supply is at its highest, and the best time to sell a white scroll is never.

 

"Mage privilege" actually has a nice, memeable ring to it. Next we'll be talking about "toxic wizardry" and "all mages are bastards".

 

Does anyone know how each meso-farming strat was impacted? For example what is ulu2/skele meso/hr compared with quad mage ulu1?

You claim this, and I don't doubt it, but can someone please provide evidence.

I think the typical single mage farmer still has a lot of 8-10m/hr strategies available to them. Only the leech-sellers cannot optimally loot while maintaining optimal eph, but I doubt this nerfs ulu2/skele THAT much. Leech sellers can just make the new normal eph one that includes mage self-looting.

 

Ulu2 is virtually unaffected if you are just farming the map. If you are selling leech however, you incure a loss of ~2m/hr because your leechers will get a portion of the meso leech.

 

It's not as linear as you would think since the best leech spot at the moment doesn't even take into consideration meso looting. These changes basically funnel everybody into 5-6, which was initially kind of balanced because we'd be limited to 8 maps in any given moment of the day. With dungeons, that number is now 16.

Potentially, we could have 16 leechers leeching 48 future attackers (80, if mage buffs open possibilities as future bossers) into bossing levels at a rate of 35m+ eph. For the record, two full Zakum fights at lvl 135 wouldn't even compare to 1 hour of leech at 5-6. Idk how anybody can see this as healthy.

 

I'm not sure why each successive nerf to 5-6F only makes the safe spots marginally more annoying to use. Just get rid of it completely. Don't allow leeching at 5-6F.

I think a big problem with balancing these maps is that the best eph maps are also the ones with the best meso generation (ulu2, skele). There's really no reason ulu2 should drop craven when other lvl 80-90 mobs don't. Similarly, why give skeles this insane drop table? 5-6F is actually great in this regard. Make it a meso-sink if you want to train there.

 

Imagine being in mid 2021 and still selling leech / actively wanting to sell leech

 

On a broader scope, I also have an issue with the lack of transparency around communication of such large meta-shifting changes. There's never any warning associated with these and hurts players trying to build up the foundation to take advantage of optimal strategies. Making multiple mages is extremely time and resource intensive, and the fact that this change was rolled out without warning disproportionately hurts players that were in progress of making these characters for the purpose of farming, as their new characters are new useless after weeks of leveling and hundreds of millions of mesos in lost leech and equipment expenses. This makes it difficult to plan one's journey of farming mesos/improving equips in the end game as any strategy you work toward can be nerfed or changed significantly with no notice. Established players with a variety of mules and funds have the ability to adapt to most new metas, so this mostly hurts newer players as they approach the end game stage. It would be great if discussion threads like these with staff input could be done before the fact rather than after.

 

First rule of maplelegends, if you can't duplicate degenerate farming strat in <1month, it'll get nerfed before you try it. Also I don' think this was a direct nerf to multi-mage farming, as it's probably still better than most strats, just not as degenerate as before.