So combined supple based armor is now 1b per piece

[Psikie]

Most likely it doesn't do anything for prices, but it would drive the last three players away from AO.

I'm ok with that. Probably would upend the market system that is run by the same 3 players. Would also eliminate those same 3 man teams from loot selling everything yesdrop.

You have convinced me the loss of those 3 players would only benefit the game.

[Farlath]

Comparing endgame gear in base AO to endgame gear in AI is perfectly reasonable and shows how out of touch the developers of AI were.

Actually i would think it would be more appropriate to compare endgame gear in SL to AI gear. You have a much more linear progression. Though most gear in SL followed the same patterns of having full sets where each piece buffed different stats. making a mix and match approach the best way to go. I do agree that the AI devs had no clue what they were unleashing on the game though.

[Herkulease]

As people leave they give their phats to friends.

As their friends get richer, and fewer people play we end up with inflation.

Less people, more money = Stupider prices. Happens in real life too.

[Thecrow91]

AI armor was a bad addition to the game. They should increase drop rates for bots and make all the sets equally useful. Also, why wasn't there a good melee/evade ai armor when they are the ones who deserve an extra edge on the defense side.

[dritst]

I still think that limit ai armor wearable by toon would help price to decrease AND rebalance a little the game (AR/DEF/Special AR) , 2 part or 3 max would be interesting (beast armor would make it 3/4 armor part as it give +30 weap skill)

[Glarawyn]

The AI armor designer never thought that toons would have more than one or two pieces; with that in mind the current price is not that unreasonable. People get upset when they "have to" buy a whole set at per-piece prices.

Unfortunately that design was a bit flawed from the start. Including full sets of armor instead of just one or two pieces was obviously enough of a carrot to lead players into obtaining full sets of AI armor. AI armor set a high bar for equipment. Probably too high. AT this point it would probably be best to revitalize a number of older armor sets that are already in game to bring them up to the bar set by AI armors. Not the equals of AI armor, but at least playing in the same league.

Maybe you only played with the raidbots, but when they were released, the alien playfields were appropriately tuned for reasonably sized groups of friends or organizations (read: 12-18) as intended.

The play fields weren't instanced when they were added to the game. The were only open every 7 hours, so you had massive numbers of people who wanted to get into only three play fields every 7 hours. It was a great day indeed when Funcom killed that mechanic.

When they were released the alien playfields weren't instanced, and thus playing with the appropriate number of people was close to impossible, as raids were run with bots on just about every gate opening.

Yeah, I might have had something to do with that...

[fakiiri]

supple was 350m before Lost Eden...same droprate as now. We need team-content w loot, like pre-le. AI-content pre-le gave both the maximum axp + bots/loot (or apf-items).

Lets say all solo-dailies was removed and the team-daily was changed to 'kill admiral' you would in just a few weeks see that botprices would drop. Ground + ship is a rather long game-session tho, considering there is other things 2 do.

350m back then but how much more creds there are ingame now?

You can easily do 1bil/week without to much of work now...
For example I have sold some dynaloot nanos for 100-150m piece. And these nanos weren't even that rare, sell db infusers 15-20m piece thats 150-200m for 5 runs.
If you cannot afford it stop whining and go farm something for those creds.
Best armor ingame should not be something too easy to get...

[Gimpynoob]

350m back then but how much more creds there are ingame now?

Blablabla...
Best armor ingame should not be something too easy to get...

I agree, what I dont agree is the need to farm creds to buy loot.

[fakiiri]

I agree, what I dont agree is the need to farm creds to buy loot.

Then do raids to get those bots (and sell excess loot). Simple as that.

[Raggy]

Then do raids to get those bots (and sell excess loot). Simple as that.

Ever stopped to think of the reason why the price has been steadily going up? Bots have a projected 10% chance to drop from ground raids. You have a 1 in 6 chance of getting the right gen.

The stats are against you from the get go.

[fakiiri]

Reason is there are more creds to be spent than before.
+ supples still drop alot. There just aint people doing large enough raids for 240+ ones....

[Raggy]

Reason is there are more creds to be spent than before.
+ supples still drop alot. There just aint people doing large enough raids for 240+ ones....

No, supples don't 'still drop alot'. They statistically drop the same amount as the other bots. The difference is people don't like a 1.666r% chance of getting the bot they want at a QL that is reasonable by doing a raid that takes upwards of 20mins with a 2 hour downtime.

[Vickie]

well if one want price down on supple bots, i say remove AI tech req on armor. so one can easy swap armors round on chars without having to train/detrain ai3.

[pinkishpunk]

Reason is there are more creds to be spent than before.
+ supples still drop alot. There just aint people doing large enough raids for 240+ ones....

220 soloing city gets 227 general and they can easly drop bots way higher than the needed 240, so aint so much raid size as it is everyone and their mom wanting supple as it goes into the two top armors

[fakiiri]

No, supples don't 'still drop alot'. They statistically drop the same amount as the other bots. The difference is people don't like a 1.666r% chance of getting the bot they want at a QL that is reasonable by doing a raid that takes upwards of 20mins with a 2 hour downtime.

Seems you are not even trying to get that 240 supple to drop while not doing ship...
Why even bother to argue anymore..
Just go ahead peole and whine long enough for FC to make the game another easymode game like wow.

[candle-645]

Main reason of current AI armor prices are long chain of changes and nerfs which devaluate other stuff.

Back to early LE times:
- AI armor costs ~450/piece for CC/CSS and ~300 for CM/CS
- Tara loot costs ~400 for DChest/CotWK and ~1.5bil for RBP
- set of ql300 symbiants - ~2.5-3bil, unless you are NT
- set of "good-enougth" symbiants for TL5 twink or leveling TL6-7 - ~1bil
- outdoor AI city - 3-6bil

What we see now:
- Collector inst: RBP dropped to ~600 and now barely back to reasonable price like 1.2bil, DChest/CotWK - 80mil is joke for items which used to be elite end-game ones
- set of alpha symbiants - only 600-800mil
- ql250-270 symbs - market completely ruined by Xan Betas, symbs used to cost 50-100mil now available for 5-10mil
- ql180-240 symbs - recent ninja change for initially rare patterns droprates (Zoetic Oak, Breaker Teuvo, Peristaltic Aversion, etc, etc.) - now GMI flooded by previously rare end expensive symbs for just 1/3 of it usual price
- AI cities - now instanced city available for everyone for just ~500mil

Peoples lost 1000s of bilions they invested into their symbiants and outdoor cities, but all these creds still in game, it just moved to AI armor market. 1bil for CC/CSS, 3bil for SSD, 4bil for PBP is price we pay for our "cheap" symbiants and instanced cities.


Also - pushing up prices is only way to effectively protect our investments from further changes.
In curent AO state - small group of peoples can easily control prices in whole markets, and they do it.
Just few examples:
- Prior to GMS replacement by GMI I'm invested some creds to fix CM armor prices on RK2, and I felt presence of other ppls doing the same too. I'm don't know how many ppls participated in that, and who they are, but within like month we managed to increase prices from 200 to 300 for ql300 and from 160 to 200 for ql 225 and protected RK2 market from cheap RK1 bots/armor for a while.
- Last weekend someone spent like 8bil (as I estimate) and removed almost all high ql strong/observant/arithmetic bots from market.
- I'm currently taking care about mid arith and high enduring and these markets already much better and healthier now comparing to just after merge.

[fakiiri]

220 soloing city gets 227 general and they can easly drop bots way higher than the needed 240, so aint so much raid size as it is everyone and their mom wanting supple as it goes into the two top armors

Ok I have maybe seen 2 x 240 supples drop from 227 general during thousands of raids but several below 240.

[Gimpynoob]

Then do raids to get those bots (and sell excess loot). Simple as that.

And here is where the basic premise fails. Not everybody has endgame toons with all the bells and whistles to be able to farm generals solo but enough people do to make teams a rare event.
Add lots of axp from daily missions, low population with a long graveyard shift and loot that discourages teaming and... you should start to see the picture by now.

The real problem is that city RAIDS were planned as a team event but are now a farm. Due to its valuable loot, city raids are the most broken gameplay in AO.

[Raggy]

Seems you are not even trying to get that 240 supple to drop while not doing ship...
Why even bother to argue anymore..
Just go ahead peole and whine long enough for FC to make the game another easymode game like wow.

Because you can't come up with a good argument. The numbers don't lie. And even if I did put together a 6 man team for an AI Raid there is still only a 16.666r% chance that the right bot drops and even then a 2.7666r% overall chance that I'll win the roll and get the bot that I did the raid for.

Face it, the numbers are stupid.

[Cariadast]

problem solved.

I dont think the idea was to completely remove the value of the bots, though!