Weird looking

[Traderjill]

It's not a credsink. A credsink removes credits from circulation. This only makes them change hands.

Giving your credits to a NPC in exchange for an item or service is a credsink. So buying weird looking nanos from the Greedy Shade NPC is indeed a credsink as are buying QL 300 clusters (normal and jobe) from a shop terminal.

[schloops]

Giving your credits to a NPC in exchange for an item or service is a credsink. So buying weird looking nanos from the Greedy Shade NPC is indeed a credsink as are buying QL 300 clusters (normal and jobe) from a shop terminal.

You mean that is happening now or they said they were going to do that?
If that is true, then yes, it is a credsink and I was wrong.

[edit]after checking, yup they are doing it. Sorry Tryptophy. Wasn't aware of that.

[grandefiasco]

I'm so glad this topic gets so much activity
Hope FC does decide to keep rare things ingame^^

[Traderjill]

I'm so glad this topic gets so much activity
Hope FC does decide to keep rare things ingame^^

I don't know if this whole topic is even serious, tbh. There are so many rare items in the game that it is, I'm sure, overwhelming for anyone that hasn't played 5+ years.

Without even speaking on the weird looking nanos, look at all of the rare dyna loot just on RK. How often does a pump master or pump trainee even drop? I can recall spending many weeks doing practically nothing else but farming nanos for my MP at dynas back in the day. The same applies to when I first rolled my soldier and needed some of her dyna nanos. Then of course there is all of the rare stuff that drops from shadowlands dynas in all playfields. I've been trying to get a grail for I can't count how many years.. but so long that I stopped needing it some 5-6 years ago. I've yet to see one drop. Heck, to some extent even pocketboss pattern pieces needed for something as rudimentary as symbiants can be considered rare. I've been farming A of Nyame for days now with no drop.. and A of another pattern as well.

Then there are other things in game that are just rare for no reason. You have a MA.. not sure what your experience was regarding camping the books but on both of mine it was terrible. I never got the IS book completed and it took me forever to get the books from ToTW. There are many examples of this form of rarity throughout the game.

Indicating that somehow moving the weird looking nanos to a NPC is funcom's way of removing rare items from the game is nothing short of being an exaggeration.

[grandefiasco]

They arent all that rare as you might think.
Just because you had trouble finding one, doesnt mean they arent dropping, even multiple times
But I still stand by my point, i've been here since late 2004 and I've seen ALOT of rare items get nerfed
Another stupid thing was all the nodrop tags removed and probably even more incoming looking at all the crybabies
I understand it can be hard for new players but lets face the facts, how many new players are truly in the game? All I see of people crying is the existing PVP crowd (mainly)
Nothing is being done to even get new players in the game and as long as FC only tries to please the PVPers (and not even ban the cheaters)
Nothign changes
But thats aside of the topic
A game without rare items, isnt even worth playing and the rarity is thinning out fast
Whats more problematic is the people who are jacking up prices, this has nothign to do with droprate even, this has purely got to do with monopolizing and greed and the current GMI system made that even worse, i still plead to get old shops back, return the nodrop tags, and keep rare items

[Baby]

You seem like you have a lot of pent up anger - at China, at capitalism, at basic MMO rare item mechanics. You should get a stress ball or something.

This.


I can totally understand how people are happy that these nanos are now easier to obtain, because frankly, I'm one of them. In my entire time in AO I have only found one single weird looking nano, and that was an advi calm. So nothing to be excited about. I gave up on the whole grind very soon, because it was simply not worth my precious lifetime. And still isn't and never will.

But on the other side I'm also someone who really likes to work for my stuff. I don't even like getting items with a high char for my lowbies, I'd prefer to get it with the toon who needs it. It's just in most cases not possible. (Inf bosses for mid lvl stuff, anyone?)

Trying to say: The whole concept of weird looking nanos and how to get them etc was completely ill-conceived, so it had to be changed. The fix is ill-conceived also, but I'd rather go with this, than having it the old way.

[Traderjill]

They arent all that rare as you might think.
Just because you had trouble finding one, doesnt mean they arent dropping, even multiple times

If you think that my statements are based solely on my own experience, you are wrong. I know that, for instance, pumps drop from dyna but they are rare. Are you disputing this?

The same can be said of other dynas. I can't count the number of times, in the past week, me and my friends have killed Asty, Creepy and Tuq'usk. Between the three of us I think we've looted 2 blood-soaked cloaks. There have been times where I've gotten slippers of screaming in back to back kills from creepy, however. Just because something drops or is looted at all doesn't have anything to do with the average drop rate.

I can go to APF and everytime I kill the gen in s28 the belt item drops. That is not rare. I can camp Tuq'usk, on a timer, for 4 hours a night for 2 weeks and never see an excalibur. It doesn't matter if it dropped for the euro guy camping in a different time zone on my day 3 of camping.. If 40+ hours of camping a mob doesn't result in a drop I'm going to label it as a rare item. I think any sane person would as well.

But I still stand by my point, i've been here since late 2004 and I've seen ALOT of rare items get nerfed
Another stupid thing was all the nodrop tags removed and probably even more incoming looking at all the crybabies
I understand it can be hard for new players but lets face the facts, how many new players are truly in the game? All I see of people crying is the existing PVP crowd (mainly)

And wow @ this whole attitude of yours that people that don't want to spend years farming items are somehow crybabies. I don't know how much time you have to play AO or what you consider fun, but I want to spend my time doing entertaining activities not killing the same boring mob over and over again or hunting through chests in a dungeon far below the level of my toon needing the nano. This is not entertaining for a good majority of AO players and the overwhelming majority of gamers, in general.

A game without rare items, isnt even worth playing and the rarity is thinning out fast

Thinning out fast in what way?

[grandefiasco]

The crybabies was referring to the PVP crowd that complains about everything and I'm not wrong about that

[Baby]

A game without rare items, isnt even worth playing and the rarity is thinning out fast

I agree on the first part, but definitely not on the last.

I just think you have a different opinion on what is rare than apparently most others. Or you have more time to spend on AO than them.

I consider a lot of pattern pieces rare, as well as a lot of symbs. Spirit shroud is a pain - I don't even know how many Scourges I killed, but I have yet to find one. Even farming Cold Stones is too much sometimes. Alb Bracer is a rare thing and so is WU. Ear/Leg takes lots of time as well when you don't want to do the quest. Currently trying to get a pere muzzle and don't even get me started on that. RK Dyna weaps/nanos. Lead bots and as Jill already mentioned in one of her posts, the Grail from Inf. And this is just the stuff on top of my head right now. The list is way longer.

To me, and a lot of my friends ingame, there are plenty of items to farm/camp that make this game worth playing. But grinding static dungeons with grey mobs as some sort of part-time job really doesn't.

[grandefiasco]

Well, maybe its just me but the things you mention arent rare
And even if you dont find the weird looknig nano you're after, you can make money in those statics without weird looknig...
I made over 300m the past couple of days, by just looting the 130+ hacked/severed and whatnot nano's, fixed them and sold them, even at fair prices, its worth it
I do have alot of free time since i cant find a job, which I actually want, but I dont spend it that much on AO, even throughout the years, I'm just an average player

[Baby]

Well, I consider things rare when they kill too much of my time.

The Cold Stones for example: You need 36 (iirc) for the coat and it actually happened to me that I spent 2 hrs at the Medusa Canyon thingy without a single drop. So I logged in to play this game, spent 2hrs of my lifetime before I had to log off again and the result is zero. My average drop was pretty much 1-2 Stones per hour. Sometimes no drop at all for a while, sometimes 3 in 10minutes. Random of course, but afterall I probably spent ~18hrs in total to get them all.
I do not consider Cold Stones worth this. Really, not at all. The next time I need them, I'll buy them. Period. And don't forget, the mesh camping isn't even included here to get the coat.

Someone with a "normal" life, as in working, having to keep the apartment clean etc, simply cannot afford so much time on a game for one single item. Especially not with the current prices of AO, because you seriously want to do something better for your money than that.

[grandefiasco]

If they make the nano's Nodrop in the NPC vendor, then I'm less opposed to it

[Wakizaka]

If they make the nano's Nodrop in the NPC vendor, then I'm less opposed to it

And why would that make a difference to your opposition of it ?

[grandefiasco]

Because then at least it still requires some effort on part of the buyer

[doctorgore]

Because then at least it still requires some effort on part of the buyer

You have destroyed your own argument at least three times now. The total effort required then is $10-15 to a chinese firm.

[Wakizaka]

Because then at least it still requires some effort on part of the buyer

What effort, walking to Pande ? Hardly effort.

[grandefiasco]

What effort, walking to Pande ? Hardly effort.

Didnt it require having all keys in order to access the NPC or did I get that wrong?
Also gonna ignore doctorgore as he's making no sense or isnt contributing to the discussion

[Wakizaka]

Didnt it require having all keys in order to access the NPC or did I get that wrong?
Also gonna ignore doctorgore as he's making no sense or isnt contributing to the discussion

Ok, if it requires having all garden keys then at least that's a bit of effort required. It does screw over anyone with lowbies who would have benefited from the weird nanos, ie. most of my chars have all keys, but if I want the nano on say a lvl110 doctor I'd have to farm them elsewhere or spend way to much time doing progression quests and dual/triple logging to keep it alive while gathering keys etc.

[Baby]

Ok, if it requires having all garden keys then at least that's a bit of effort required. It does screw over anyone with lowbies who would have benefited from the weird nanos, ie. most of my chars have all keys, but if I want the nano on say a lvl110 doctor I'd have to farm them elsewhere or spend way to much time doing progression quests and dual/triple logging to keep it alive while gathering keys etc.

Not if, it actually does require having all keys.
I entirely agree with you, weird nanos are not a high level thing only, so making them ND would be pointless, since the whole credit sink thing wouldn't be a thing anymore.

Making them ND would make sense when a greedy shade was placed in all sanct gardens. So iNR for example would be found at Ely Sanct. You have the effort of doing the key quest (which could be improved for that matter) with the char who needs the nano and additionally make it pricey. But however, this isn't a Game Suggestion thread, just came to my mind.

[DigitalBath]

I think the only distinction to be made is.. Does the incredibly expensive item improve your profession's performance from "fine" to "good" or from "crappy" to "acceptable" by today's standards?

If it's the latter, it's wrong for it to be rare and the reasons should be obvious to everyone.
If it's the former, keep them rare, though 200-300m should be the absolute cap for most NPC-bought items so that might not be the best path to go with.