Weapon Grinding Change Proposal

[Keystone]

On 1/19/2021 at 7:22 PM, white mist said:

3) What are your overall opinions with the current grinding system? What do you think about upgraded weapons in general?

I'm fine with the system your way or the current way.

But one change I'd make is for lower grade weapons. By using +10 grinders of a higher grade, a C-rank Florescent Bulb for example could become...

     B-rank Florescent Bulb+ (with B+10 grinder),

     A-rank Florescent Bulb++ (with A+10 grinder), or

     S-rank Florescent Bulb# (with S+10 grinder)

I suggested this in an earlier topic, but Marmalade told me the weapon names could take up too many characters. I'd be fine though if the name read something like...

     Florescen... ++

I'll have an S-rank Florescent Bulb one day...

Edited January 22, 2021 by Keystone

[xuk_demon]

9 hours ago, Aprilstar said:

This should not even exist at the game's final state. Look at how much people voted yes. There are 5000+ accounts created in this game. This small group of players should not hold the power of changing the game of 5000. Also, look closely at the people who are voting on this topic. I can identify 5 individuals that are always seen together in a party and separate discords. I can also identify another smaller group of individuals who share the same private discord too. Hey even look at the original poster, there is someone who liked the original post that shares the same pfp as the original poster for a long time. This is a rigged poll that will not decide the fate of 5000+ simply put. Most players do not even use the forums or even discord. 

These are not player decisions to be voted on. This should be something constructed and acted upon by a game dev only. How does the original poster even get to talk to game staff anyways? I always try to messgae them about my problems with no answer at all. This is fishey as heck.

If I actually saw some of the people talking about this playing in game I wouldn't be putting this out so harsh. Some of the people talking in this thread just sit in the lobby and hardly play for a small amount of time. You want the game to revolve around the small amount of time you have to play the game, /that is your fault, not the games fault you have no time. 

Who are you?

[bando_boyッ]

2 hours ago, xuk_demon said:

Who are you?

idk they are pretty cute tho ngl

[Detox]

No way! If anything add the weapon repairs. This will destroy the market and takes away the accomplishment of getting a 10/10 

[Ronald Mcdonald]

Desperate for an official reply from the staff.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Ronald Mcdonald

[Detox]

There’s like 5000 players, A change this big to grinding can not be voted on by the handful that are Active here.

[Ronald Mcdonald]

What this post is trying to commute is the use of fiscal policy in order to simulate the market and player base. But in reality this is a form of a tax cut which will eventually lead to hyperinflation and a crashed market.

To understand how this post is a tax cut I will explain the current motion in which meseta flows in the game

 

 

The current system relies on players hitting the S+10 draw when converting those Grinder S boards for their sweet return on their money. The current rate for converting a stack of grinder base S is calculated below.

 

Fix to reflect To make a return on this profit one must make 10+ S+10 and sell at the current rate at around 80k per to make a profit on the 600k spent. You will need to make 12+ to make a profit if buying base S off the market. Given there are 10 different grinders you can make. You have a 10% chance at making 10 S+10s per stack of grinder base S. Now the money sink in this system of grinding relies on cheaper grinders being almost worthless and not being able to sell. The level of difficulty in obtaining S+10 helps reduce money in the money chain. You don't always make S+10 when converting a stack of base S. The money sink is also achieved by grinds breaking back down to 0/9 rendering all the money spent on those S+10s useless. (unless bought off of the market cause that goes to a different player)

Eventually grinders will climb due to the introduction of more S rank weapons.

 

S+10 will be so expensive that players will rather make their own grinders than buy on the open market. Breaking the grinds will forever erase the meseta spent on buying the grinder boards off the market. Helping fight inflation.

Now that you understand the meseta sink I will explain how this is a fiscal policy tax cut in two different ways.

1. Players will be able to use cheaper grinders, and at the same time sell the cheaper grinders for a more better price. Increasing the overall money supply to all players because the cheap grinders now have value. The sale of S grinder boards will be negated by the high value of all other grinders made. S grinder boards will simply need to be made worth 250k+ to fight back with this inflation.

The high board cost to negate the high cost of effective cheap grinders will cause S+10 to rocket up to being worth around 2 mil each in a matter of a few weeks- due to high demand and low supply since the board price will be needing to be heightened.

2. The posters of this thread are also trying to suggest another tax cut on the current system by trying to negate the loss of grinders used by not reverting a 9/10 weapon to 0/9. This is a tax cut simply because it is not removing the money spent on those grinds from the game like it should.

(Breaking a 9/10 grind removes 9 potential S+10 grinders) 80k x 9 = 720k meseta removed from the game

This is during a time when the Introduction of global drops have been implemented, which is harshly increasing the money supply way too fast with npc-able items. This is great way to introduce more money but inflation needs to be combated.

The effect on inflation will be too hard felt amongst the community. There are two different things being inflated through the implantation of this proposal. Meseta and 10/10 weapons.

Meseta:

In order for there to be a stable open market in the game, player shops abide to the only acceptable currency in the game. There will be weapons so powerful that stacks of gold bars will be a must in order to trade for these items if there isn't a proper sink in place. The stacks of gold bars will then continue to cycle through hands without being flushed until the market is flooded with ridiculously priced items that new and returning players could never imagine of obtaining. Or even worse, meseta can be made useless and player shops are made useless.

Meseta is important because without it there will be no basis to value an item. Value is what helps players make open market purchases during the on and off times of the player base as well.

10/10 weapons:

Right now there is a large demand for 10/10 weapons. Due to their rarity. This proposal aims at making 10/10 weapons pop out like candy from a candy machine. In which eventually the supply of these weapons will grow larger than the demand for these weapons. The scarcity of a resource determines the level of demand for the resource. Removing the scarcity of a resource is a recipe for crashing the market through a surplus market. If you can not see it yourself. Here is another chart.

What needs to be done to the market is not fiscal policy. Monetary policy must be implemented instead.

 A monetary policy would be to steadily increase the price of grinder boards throughout the servers life. This will control the growth of the economy. This is why I want to try and advocate that Grinder S boards be worth 50k at least.

The original poster even said in this screenshot, highlighting how this can easily crash the market 

 

One last chart I want to put in. Here is 5000 players highlighted in blue. Here is the amount of players voted yes highlighted in orange in this poll as of today

.

I rest my case

- M

Edited January 24, 2021 by Ronald Mcdonald

[Jess Victorix]

This system pretty much works how melding works in ff14. Which btw totally works grinding anything besides meta gear is worthless and a waste of time this proposed change would incentivise players to grind weapons even if not always to 10/10. This putting 10/10 weapons on a damn pedestal is nature of some same people that won't use weapons that are 4/4 5/5 6/6 etc for fear of being ridiculed or just consider anything not 10 garbage guys 10/10 don't make you good player. I'm sorry but current system is designed for big player base with end goal to grab money from the players as it stands right now with how quick we move through updates grinding is pure waste of time before you know it that 10/10 pwand has been replaced and all sudden worthless in server where meseta means very little if you truly want to be gross as it stands right now none should grind anything and just stock up s+10 for eventual endgame (great system right?) Yeah "fun"

[アイカ]

I agree that the grinding system should be changed. As it is now, it's just a frustrating system that has not much to do with anything else but sheer luck. The fact that your weapon can easily break, even with the best available grinders, is just crap. In my experience the chance of my weapon breaking and losing a max grind level along with the fact that it loses all it's current grinds is holding me off from actually getting more into grinding weapons at all. The system was shit on retail and it hasn't changed here. It's actually even worse because of the smaller playerbase (which is obvious, since this is a private project and not a ginormous retail server). There is less weapons on the market, some boards are quite expensive too and not to forget the materials, that are taking a load of money to buy, if you are not lucky and find them yourself (looking at you, Relic Edges and Serafi Feathers <.<;). A revision of the grinding system could improve the situation overall in my eyes.

I do agree on the fact that there should be some kind of repercussion for failing a grind. But the whole "weapon breaks, goes back to 0 and can only be brought up to 9 afterwards" is just too much. Personally I would like to see a system in place that is like PSO2s OT grinding system:

Grinding can fail, and if it fails, the weapon will lose SOME progress on it's current grind but will still be able to be fully grinded in the end. The amount of lost grind levels upon failing a grind should be determined by the rarity of the weapon and - if that is even possible to implement - should be picked at a random number (for example: a 10* weapon can lose up to 3 grind levels upon failing going from grind level 8 to 9 and RNGesus will pick if the weapon loses 0, 1, 2 or 3 grind levels). With the success rates grinding has, it would still take quite a few tries to get a weapon to 10/10 and it might still be a huge sink for meseta to either make or buy the needed Grinders.

While I raged at this system to no end on PSO2 and was so happy when NT grinding got implemented with no chance of failure, I don't think that would be good for Clementine. In order to get the system a little more balanced and less frustrating for those who just want to get their weapons to 10 at some point (in comparison to those who are only happy with a set of 50% ele 10/10 weapons for MAX DPS and those who already plan for FCP even though it's not even sure if we will ever get GAS with FCP).

Maybe the devs can work out some kind of compromise that makes most people happy. All I really wish for now, would be, that there is no more weapon breaking

[SPiEkY]

Please, for the love of God, do not remove weapon breaks on grinds.

Doing so will destroy the risk/reward aspect and subsequently ruin the fun for a number of people (myself included, of course).

[Potato]

I have been thinking about this since reading the proposal and have been putting off my reply. I am going to try to keep this short to no more than a few short paragraphs as no one wants to read a long winded rant. I want to start out by saying I 100% think breaking weapons should always be a thing in PSU, loot is PSU's end all be all.  Hunting drops and doing TA is the only thing to do when you reach endgame in a game like this. That being said I am not against finding a way to make all A+(x) and S+(x) useful while still making grinding a risk. Without weapons breaking and losing potential they have no need to be replaced outside of weapon percentage on striking weapons.

Weapons not breaking when we know they will be replaced by something better in a few weeks time makes sense as they will lose most if not all their worth, and the fun factor of finding something better comes into play with new drops. However, unless the developers are going to endlessly add new content and new gear until the day clementine shuts down the server at some in the game we wont see new items. All there will be left to do is search out the perfect items, build the perfect palettes for whatever type(s) you play.

Having a system where weapons break keeps the hunt alive, yes some people are going to have better RNG, some people are going to be able to play the market and afford everything they ever wanted and many of us, myself included will never have the top percentage of the best of the best gear. However, that doesn't mean you wont have good gear, the game is still playable without that perfect set. Not having that perfect set gives you something to log in and strive for. Having an imperfect palette challenges you to change your playstyle from someone else and to think, "what's the best weapon and PA to use in my arsenal for this situation".

 The only people who it truly hurts to not have the best of the best gear is Time Attackers as some of their competition may have an advantage over them due to having gear that is marginally or even significantly better than theirs, which I am very understanding can do a lot when it comes to clear times, but we shouldn't balance the game around making everyone equal. Weapons need to break, it keeps the market alive and the hunt endless, breaking weapons is a good thing you get something else to look forward too. I accept that if numbers that have been told to me are correct 95% of the things I bring to grind will not be 10/10 and that is okay, without full custom power the difference in damage on most weapons is marginal. However a 5% chance at 10/10 is low and I understand why that would upset a lot of people, that is why I am not against making grinding odds a tad more forgiving, however stuff needs to break and breaks need to be more common than uncommon in my personal opinion. 

 

/end long rant that I said would be short.....

[Aelphasy]

If breaking remain (and possibly it should, Potato's arguments are fine), then again a slight success rate increase would be welcome. Or, if fail, -1/-1, not -total/-1. What some have experienced lately seems too brutal to me (like 2/2 a weapon you spend hours to hunt) that's torture, not money sink.

 

[Potato]

Aelphasy, the problem at this point in the game in my opinion the drop rates are rather low and if this is the precedent, it will only get worse as we progress since better items should be harder to find than their weaker counterparts (the update has improved this, but only marginally) this rate is really only bad in my personal opinion due to the population size, these drop rates would be fine if there was a larger player base as the market would be more saturated allowing you to buy items you want at a more affordable price, more often. This grind system was 100% designed with abundance in mind, with items being this rare you are more hesitant to grind them or more likely to feel upset if they break. I personally believe it is best to go in with the mentality that it's going to break, and be surprised when it doesn't or at least if it doesn't break to absolute shit, like it did in your case of a 2/2. However that 2/2 gives you a reason to find another one and hope to get a better grind on it or maybe makes you ask, is this worth putting my S+10's in. I understand that is part of the argument of people should be able and wanting to grind things now, not save it all for endgame and that is valid. However trying to balance a system that I believe was designed around the endgame portion of the game to be forgiving or downright riskless mid game will only hurt the longevity of the server as people will lose interest when they have everything they want. If there are no breaks it's just a battle of attrition, you'll never need to replace anything at endgame just dump S+(x) grinders in it over and over until it reaches 10/10 there is no real risk in that it's just a meseta dump.

[Mr. Judo]

On 1/24/2021 at 3:26 AM, Ronald Mcdonald said:

What this post is trying to commute is the use of fiscal policy in order to simulate the market and player base. But in reality this is a form of a tax cut which will eventually lead to hyperinflation and a crashed market.

I cut out the rest of your comment so I'm not quoting a giant post.

There are many ways to remove meseta from the game. They can tax player-to-player sales. They can make upgrade failures go back a stage, instead of resetting the entire weapon and reducing the max upgrade level, it's still sinking Meseta and time. Reducing the chance of a successful upgrade would require more grinds too, taking more Meseta out of the game.

What is essentially being suggested is, less having to look for weapons (the chances could be reduced to satisfy your wants), and more having to get grinders by reducing chances of success. Not some "fiscal policy" or "tax cut." They could make the chances of getting 10/10 to an astronomically low number so it's not as common. But at least people will buy grinders or make their own and try, since there will be no breaking. Grinders will become more universally useful, and grinding for specific weapons will take longer but once you have it, you don't have to worry about it becoming useless.

To the people arguing that Sega made it that way for a reason, Sega also didn't make a huge portion of the game's content available outside of Japan. Should we respect all of Sega's decisions? Especially the ones they made to make more money. It sounds ridiculous.

[Ronald Mcdonald]

7 hours ago, Mr. Judo said:

They could make the chances of getting 10/10 to an astronomically low number so it's not as common.

This, look at the trade chat on discord. It is an accomplishment if you 10/10 certain items. You are praised and congratulated upon multiple times by doing so. It is a big thing. I say it is the ONLY thing. People saying 10/10 is no big deal, yet push for making it easier. So contradicting, so confusing, and so detrimental to the game's atmosphere.

I mean, almost all items in the game can be bought for roughly a mil or under right now. If it breaks, then new players are welcomed to come get their item on discount. Basic economy and trades are in play here. Why put a stop to a perfect system to test something on the final server Mr. Judo? On a good day you can make 5mil on a very good day you can make 10mil. Even the price of grinders has went down! 

Plenty of money and recourses to go for that weapon and grind you want. People really out here dying to get a complete pallet a week after an update comes out. Just no way for a game to be. Long live PSU! The interest in this game may go up for a good period of time. One must think about the long term though.

 

This is the new grinding chart basically. I don't know how can one agree with this personally. 

Or agree what will happen to the game?

The comments on this thread is each different from one another almost too. 

[white mist]

I don't know why I am even replying to the nonsense charts above me but I'll just put this here anyway.  This is the current grinding rates for S ranks provided to me by Marm. 

They don't really seem that crazy but everyone has their own experience with them. The rates with my system would be the chart below here since you either didn't read what I put or you just completely did not understand it. 

This whole post was just to be a place to make a conversation about grinding and how people as whole feel along with getting a collection of ideas / opinions all in one place to be viewed more easily and started it off with my own. The poll at the main post is not a VOTE on whether what I put there is going in or not, it is quite literally a place for people who do not want to give a full reply but want to add their opinion and for those who do not want to read all the replies and instead just get a general glance at what people feel. I would ask for some of you to relax a little and just treat this as a standard conversation for future reference, however I'd like to thank everyone who has read what I put as well as leaving a reply! 

Hope you all have a great day and don't go too crazy if either something does change or doesn't change, it is a game at the end of the day. Cheers

[Ronald Mcdonald]

12 hours ago, white mist said:

This whole post was just to be a place to make a conversation

Hello Mr. white mist. I have waited over a week to start this so called "conversation" with you. It seems no matter how many times I would post, you would not reply to a single response until now. I will start off my response by showing you what the basic definition of a conversation is. 

So after a week we have finally started this "conversation" you talked about. 

12 hours ago, white mist said:

the nonsense charts

I wont lie, the recent chart additions were primarily made just to poke at the lack of existing conversation. I will say that my initial chart posting was intended to be factual on what you are trying propose though. You see, I actually put statistical data into my reply. I did this to show the effects that this would have on the market. Ever since the pandemic has happened I have ben locked up inside of my house for a year studying and making charts. This is because I made the Dean's List in the study of microeconomics, macroeconomics, business law, and marketing for over a year now. Statistical market data is something I wish you would have made in order to show what plans you have to prop up the market crash this proposal would bring. Instead, you say that you don't care about the current marketing system that is place.

The posting from my forum account is coming from someone who is centered around the fear of testing things out on the final release of Clementine. I have played Clementine since 2016 and was given the impression that there will be no more test servers now. If you played last test server, then why are you making testing proposals right now? Did you not have the entire test server to propose this change?

Also, you brought up you broke a weapon 60 times without 10/10 last server. I remember you!! It is very suspicious to think that you spent 600m on grind repairs alone. Plus an almost additional 400m on constantly grinding your weapon!! S+10 was going for 1-2mil+. You are saying you almost spent a billion meseta on that one weapon? Yet there was not a single weapon in the game worth half of that price. EPD was going for only 200m and below at one point. How did you accumulate such a mass of disposable meseta during the game?

OH that's right, you shared parties, along with a private discord where I have seen you casually talking to AT LEAST 2 known speed hackers. 

I can see why you like to talk about making the game easier, you been around people who have made the gave verrrry easy on their own behalf. 

Laugh out loud.

Maybe your weapon broke so much simply because of the association with these speed hackers? Ever stopped to think that?

12 hours ago, white mist said:

The poll at the main post is not a VOTE on whether what I put there is going in or not, it is quite literally a place for people who do not want to give a full reply but want to add their opinion and for those who do not want to read all the replies and instead just get a general glance at what people feel.

I am very happy you disclosed this as a pipe dream. It makes you sound not very confident in your proposal. Anyways, back to the "conversation" I want to have with you.

• What do you think the new price of S boards should be? The price would obviously need to be increased.
• Olpads, copernia, base S, and overall weapon drops will have to have a reduced drop rate since you can simply spam a button until you get 10/10. How much should the rare drop rate % be reduced?
• Why do you not care about the meseta part of the game? Do you not like player shops?
• If there is no breaking, yet a very low chance of 10/10. Then technically wouldn't you have failed way more than 60 times to get that 10/10 you need so bad? How does this proposal not contradict its roots?

I do not mean you any hard feelings. I also want to wish you a nice day.

Good luck on any of your future drops as well friend. 

- M

Edited January 31, 2021 by Ronald Mcdonald

[Takarias]

On 1/27/2021 at 2:07 AM, Ronald Mcdonald said:

Even the price of grinders has went down! 

Aye, the value of S+10 Grinders has indeed decreased since its recent high on the 20th. However, your chart is highly misleading, lacks context, and the horizontal axis does not use a consistent timescale. Looking at historical grinder values with context shows that grinder value increases when there's new stuff worth grinding, and when demand is high due to an increased player count. The grind rate increase from Subzero Outbreak also propelled grinders to their highest value I have seen right at the end as people rushed to capitalize on it. After correcting a bit from that high, S+10s have held more of that value than other high S Grinders, which steadily returned to their prices from before the event.

The data in the below chart has been collected daily since November 28th, 2020. This data is collected manually, near midnight EST. Data from December 5th is missing due to an ISP issue that prevented me from connecting. Please let me just query the server directly. I'll even make the data public!

Based on historical behavior, I suspect they will fall somewhat over the next few months as updates (and thus level increases and new weapons becoming available) stagnate, as Marm explained on Discord.

The other three charts are best described as 'fanciful.' The grind rate chart - the only one of the three that contains anything other than pure subjective speculation - is handily proven entirely false, as @white mist has so clearly explained before me.

Please do not spread misinformation or present opinion as fact.

Edited January 31, 2021 by Takarias
Spelling.

[Ronald Mcdonald]

8 hours ago, Takarias said:

Aye, the value of S+10 Grinders has indeed decreased since its recent high on the 20th. However, your chart is highly misleading, lacks context, and the horizontal axis does not use a consistent timescale.

Hello Friend. Thanks for providing a more in depth chart. I did not have the same data provided to me when I first started constructing that chart. I will say your chart is missing the data from the beginning of the game. Otherwise it would show when S+10 was floating around 25k for a while. Our charts do share that same steep up climb that happened during the last grind boost. Sorry I didn't label label it as the first of November. 

If you look at my latest post that was on 1/30/21, I explain that the latest additions of my charts were made solely to poke at the lack conversation that this thread has. Did you know I also posted the definition of a conversation as per google? 

I will ask you to please read all my replies before you post your own reply to mine friend. So you can see the truth behind the origin of my second chart posting. 

Maybe you would like to start the conversation that Mr. @white mist has made this thread for? Misty seems to not want to participate as much as some others would like.

• What do you think the new price of S boards should be? The price would obviously need to be increased. The price of all grinders would outprice the 30k per S grinder board.
• Olpads, copernia, base S, and overall weapon drops will have to have a reduced drop rate since you can simply spam a button until you get 10/10. How much should the rare drop rate % be reduced?
• Can you provide any terminology or data to show how this proposal can positively effect the market? How can an abundance of 10/10 not drive 10/10 prices down? 0/10 weapons will lose value as well and grinding will be the only way to add real value to a weapon through this proposal.

Thanks again for providing a well constructed chart, but just because you lack data from the beginning of the server does not make my S+10 chart misleading. I got my data from actually purchasing S+10 from the open market since the game started. I can show you my 4 stacks for proof if you like.

Good luck in all your drops this week friend. 

-M

Edited February 1, 2021 by Ronald Mcdonald
big bread

[Hatsodoom]

I... can't even read this. You need to work on your formatting man.

[packor]

suggested that, was ignored