Ideas Discussion Thread

[Ehlmaris]

 

[Known To Own]

Great idea's and valid arguments. Also add Supers for Ash. The whole "make a DD then gamble it away for 4-6 random supers" seems like a bad idea.

Add the possibility of killing more Beasts. Say 2x AA or 3x reg of the same name. And increase random spawn rate chance.

Add a special location, like the skyshrine, but with bigger skill % chance and no ash.

[Grenth]

TL;DR version:

• Add content to the game once in a while, fix existing content so that it becomes appealing to new and existing players again (primarily the entire kingdom aspect of the game)- gaining players doesn't help a whole lot if you can't keep them hooked for very long.
• Have an active admin/developer to deal with bots and respond to feedback so we know what direction you want to take with the game and improve our feedback.
• Consider merging servers (I realize there would be issues with this, but solutions are possible).
• Give brand new players more things to do. Perhaps quests to guide them on their way to level 10.
• Tweak poker to make it more accesible to newbies without making it cheap to exploit like it was before.
• Remove banned kingdoms, at least in surface and after a certain period of time has elapsed since the ban.
• Make the game more accesible in terms of money invested. Having to spend $170 for full access then $400 for scepters and a further 4 D*Devs to nuke ($50-300+ each depending on whether you buy from Glitchless or from players rage quitting) is kind of steep to be able to just be competitive in the kingdom game. This doesn't include the cost of the multiple characters you'll need if you want a decent income from kingdoms - 1 character with 1500 kingdoms can fund at best 3-5 hours of nuking a month.

As for the OP:

1. Until the game gains more players, multiple tiers of acumen would be silly considering we have less than 64 characters logged between both servers lately. However, it would be easy to figure out the power of a char by reworking power index to where it gives a useful value (for example, starting at 0 with each super relic adding 1000, d*devs adding 1000000, etc) and preventing you from swapping gear after roll call and before the tiers are sorted. This would make it possible to enforce limits. Bear in mind that 90% of a character's acumen power is the suit, and not so much the character.
2. I have mixed feelings on new treassure essences. GTs are big enough; the idea is that you have to either go through the hassle of making mules or store gold in kingdoms where it will be vulnerable to attacks. On the other hand, older players already have a fair amount of mules so it just adds more grind to new players in a way that isn't really fun.
3. I posted those nuking suggestions and I still stand by them (and there are more if you go back in post dates...). Fixing the war game to make it playable wouldn't necessarily bring in new players but it might be a motivator for those that quit and come back to check things out once in a while.
4. D*Devs are underpowered in acumen, considering their cost. You can assemble a suit for 1/6 the cost (in ash) that will beat a D*Dev suit with chances at or above 50%. This is a "problem" with the PvP mechanics more than the relic itself.
5. I agree with reducing the cost of access. The $65 deal was great even if all of us abused it to make an alt or 2. SoS package was great back in the day, too. We could make arguments for this or that quest being necessary to experience most of the game, but a starter pack with dun/sky access at least would be good. Maybe we could have different packages available (trans, sos, sose, etc...).

Longer version:

Following is a list of some problems with the game that, in my opinion, eventually cause players to quit or not be interested in the first place. The politics and war in the very old days (prior to corruption, "profit" nuking being removed, etc) made the game very interesting for me and most of my former teammates for instance, and this big side of the game has become plain boring.

I think one of the main issues with the game, both for new players and those of us that played for a long time, is lack of appealing content. For new players, there is basically nothing to do but level until level 10, which can be a few very boring hours. Maybe the mentor system could be removed and the limitations on <10 chars lifted, or a series of quests introduced to entertain new players on their way to 10. Even after level 10, this is what the game has to offer:

• Poker: Can be fun, but needs a more active player base. This is a problem that should solve itself by having more players. Maybe the 10x increase to bets was a bit too high and needs to be reduced a little so that new players can participate, though reducing it to the old levels might be too far.
• Crafting: The crafting system is too bland and serves no purpose anymore other than convenience and EEoT/EEoGT crafting. This would probably require a lot of thought to make appealing and work right, but there's definitely a type of player that enjoys crafting.
• Grinding your character: Farming relics, skilling, leveling, etc... this is enough to keep some players entertained for a long time, but gets boring quickly unless you have other things to do, and multiple ways to achieve your goals. For example if gold had value, you could try and buy super relics and such with it instead of just having to ash, which would incentive plex building and all that comes along with it.
• Plexing: There is not a whole lot of point in plexing right now because the game mechanics greatly discourage waging war and corruption makes it so you need to own many characters to be a top contender, on top of the huge amount of grind involved in the building, expansion and embezzling from plexes. Additionally, you don't need very large amounts of gold for anything in the game except war and expansion... which are both for the most part pointless right now.
• Beasting: Beasting is one of the 2 things that's always fun; perhaps having some new beasts with the old Ancient mechanics of infinite kills per month would give people more reason to play, even if the drops aren't great.
• Acumen: Acumen will always be fun, but the nerf to prizes was followed by a huge decline in population. In part, perhaps, this is because sometimes people invest in the game expecting to maybe win some of it back someday, or even profit. With the new prize, building a new char from scratch with a cost effective, but competitive suit, would cost over $1000 if all parts are bought directly from glitchless. To fully deck out a character would be far more expensive, but studying the game mechanics and buying the right items can save you a very large sum. Also, a lower prize is always going to be less exciting than a big prize. There will always be a random factor to acumen that will help make it so it's not always the same person winning if there is a somewhat healthy playerbase.
• Plex compet: With the way this competition works now, you can either drop a ton of gold on the competition or be really good at the game and win it with less; either way, if you don't have a massive foothold, chances are you're only going to get one shot at winning before you have spikes that are extremely cost efficient to build inside your plex. Maybe this could be removed until a more interesting system can be designed, or until war is reworked; after all, it's always the same few people winning every month and hardly contested now. With the new prize, it's not enough incentive to try and beat the old players, and with the old prize you risk just feeding us more as in the past.

Making some of these aspects of the game appealing again would help retain players and spark interest in new ones.

The other main issue is probably the very few and far inbetween updates the game receives, and the lack of administrator/moderator presence outside acumens. Bots ran rampant for years and were often never dealt with despite being easy to see, even if it's not easy to prove beyond reasonable doubt.

One other big problem is the lack of response to feedback/interest in updating that Glitchless has displayed for the last few years. If you could elaborate on why X or Y idea is bad or can't be implemented, and perhaps allow players to attempt to change your mind, it would benefit everyone involved. If the feedback itself is presented in a way that it's not useful, consider using constructive criticism so that it's more useful the next time.

Thanks for reading.

[orangefur]

hirelings or pets that you can buy/hire i think that would help surface-bound characters as well as non surface bound. they come with there own starter gear but you can give them relics to boost there damage.
you can also tame random beasts to make them pets pets include but not limited to dog,cat,giant rat, ect. mounts as well, (horse, dragon, ect.)

[Ehlmaris]

More ideas that are listed on my site:

Idea 1: New Class - Assassins

CONCEPT:
Stealthy, swift, silent, these methodical killers are a force to be reckoned with. Unable to wear heavy equipment (dur armor), they will fall more easily than other classes... if you can hit them in time. Their weapons are light, and their agile movements allow them to become one with their blade, putting the razor sharp edges right where they need to be. Incredible discipline and concentration guides their attacks to be incredibly lethal.

MECHANICS:
Can't equip durability armor
Weapons must be Light
Higher base armor leads to lower delay, similar to Archers
Accuracy stat: Agi
Damage stat: Cnc
Accuracy skill: Attacking Accuracy
Damage skill: Attacking Precision

Special crap: High levels of Haste can lead to a Sneak Attack... Like an Ambush, the enemy is caught completely offguard. Effectively reduces the enemy's defense for one round of combat. Occurs similar to Critical hits, except 1/4 as often, and based on Haste, not Criticality.

Class titles: 2 weapons - Novice Ninja, Ninja, Ninjutsu Master. 1 weapon - Novice Samurai, Samurai, Shogun.

To be a Ninjutsu Master/Shogun, the character must receive the Assassin's Glove quest item by killing an Ancient Alchemar.

WHY SHOULD THIS IDEA BE IMPLEMENTED?

To make light weapons and non-durability armor worth something again. Also, a new class would draw lots of interest from players currently getting bored of switching stats around to find a perfect combination... It could draw some players back in.


Idea 2: New Special Location

CONCEPT:
A new location where players would go when they need ash, the location could be called the Volcano. It would operate similarly to the Forbidden Mines. Ash rushes would be far more common here, and for certain prices, the effectiveness of the rushes would increase.

MECHANICS:
For something along the lines of 2,500 ash and 1,000,000 gold, players could "lace" the Volcano. The chat line would be something like this: Smoke rises from the top of the Volcano! Ash rushes would increase in size to 100-200.

Once the Volcano begins smoking, for 5000 ash and 2,500,000 gold, players could "saturate" the Volcano. The chat line would be something like this: A deep rumble is heard within the Volcano! Ash rushes would be incredibly more valuable, ranging from 250-500 ash.

After the Volcano rumbles, players could "imbue" it for 10,000 ash and 5,000,000 gold. Once this happens, players would see this in chat: The Volcano erupts, spewing forth massive amounts of ash! Ash rushes at this point would reach from 500-750 ash.

The location could be reserved strictly for SoSe players, or for players who do not have the SoS upgrade yet, if helping the newbs is preferred.

WHY SHOULD THIS IDEA BE IMPLEMENTED?

Ashing for various upgrades is a long, tedious process. Restricting this to players who do not have SoS does remove the potential for abuse by more powerful players. It would make the game more appealing to newer players, since it would be easier for them to get more powerful without spending so much money. And, as more players get powerful, the demand for high-end items increases, making them more valuable and more scarce, relatively speaking.

Idea 3: Special Location Runes

CONCEPT:
When players find runes in special locations, they never get to use them. All those runes are ever good for is providing targets for tectons. Well, that needs to change! We're all sick of noobs saying "omfg another rune for pub," we're sick of hearing the complaints that this stuff goes to waste. I suggest that finding runes in special locs should result in the player getting something back.

MECHANICS:
For each rune found in a special location, the player will get one rune added to a counter. When a rune is found in a special location, the game processes a simple mathematical function to determine if the player gets something or not.

-This will be completely random.
-For each rune on their counter, players get one chance at getting something.
-These chances are out of 2 billion.
-The counter resets when an award is given.

Depending on the location, the prize for the player will change.
-Stallion's Pub/Le Puddle Deep: 100-250 ash
-Forbidden Mines: 1-5 1b specs
-Insane Dungeon/Sky Shrine: 1 skill
-Heaven Keep/Hell Keep: Essence Element of Treasure
-Forbidden Palace: 1 PLA

WHY SHOULD THIS IDEA BE IMPLEMENTED?

Clicking is incredibly boring. Players need something new every now and then to keep them awake and efficient. The prizes are fairly weak to keep people from getting too powerful from this. This also makes the Forbidden Palace somewhat useful again, as nobody uses it these days. It could help players out quite a bit if done right.

[Eli]

Bring back name swaps but leave a tracer (that only rwk admins can see) on the char so if it has won acumen you cant use it to win again over consecutive months.

[Dooky]

Ehl has taken a lot of time with these proposals. I would like to see the admins at least give his ideas a thought and a reply---that is at least as much as they deserve. RWK can be a great game again, just needs a few tweaks and to bring new blood in.

For Admins that means $$$. Who doesn't like $$$?

[Ehlmaris]

Originally Posted by Eli

Bring back name swaps but leave a tracer (that only rwk admins can see) on the char so if it has won acumen so you cant use the it to win acumen over consecutive months.

This should be pretty easy to accomplish... just assign a unique ID to each account, and have the username stored as a property of the ID.

DISCLAIMER: I don't code. It may not be that simple, but it is in my head.

lots of updates goin on here lol hi ehl

[xaivia]

It's kind of sad to have poked my nose in to RWK after a decade and to see ideas like these unimplemented. So much spot on in the first few posts.

No one sells anything for gold any more, it is essentially worthless. So much could be done to address this. 'Lacing' the volcano for an hour of ash rushes for 999 runes or whatever.

As far as I can tell, the only use for gold now is making stones for the chance of a DD.

Perhaps degradable equipment with similar repair costs could go a long way too. Or a way to buy short term chance increases for skills, or supers crystal and DD drops.

[mak3nsh1]

There is still a use for gold. Primarily, to get players started in the game. Craft items for the new users. Dis/enchant items. I see people selling Demo/Earthen and Beast Drop relics for gold. They do not and from my history in the game have rarely seen DD, D*Dev, Supers, Upgraded Supers, and ToTF sold via gold. If we were to equate a DD into price in gold, it is 450 trillion. MR/CR is approximately 60 to 75 trillion. There are only a handful of people on S2 that have that kind of cash to buy in gold. Ironically, those are the ones getting those items via the various quests to acquire. I would like to see Supers be purchasable via PP vice MO-only even if on the old 1 per x number of days.

[xaivia]

You don't feel like additional gold sinks wouldn't help the economy somewhat? I appreciate what you are saying about supers etc not being sold for gold. We are all grown ups here, I think we can admit the real currency has always been $$.

The journey to owning DDs and supers used to be bezzle +/or build, sell gold for $$ spend that $$ with DD producers or on EEoA from Jeff directly. IIRC gold used to sit somewhere between $5-$10/t back when there was a fair bit of war. That would have made a DD come in anywhere from 25-50T, depending on source/the rate you got. That kind of three point exchange was pretty common.

When you are talking 450T, it doesn't really matter how you got to that number. We can safely take from it that gold has hugely devalued over the years. In game, you can see it clearly when trying to get hold of things like PEs or demos. Similarly expensive relic rentals. Many players simply have no use for more gold so are not open to any exchange involving it in game. Additional gold sinks remedy this somewhat.

As an example gold sink, the chance of spawning public beasts with 1k ash is what? 1/2? If you could tect the Palace for a 1/4 chance of flushing out a beast spawn or so, trading for gold immediately starts looking more attractive.