Its like anything in life. It ***** to lose something, but you have to move on. As a business, INNOVA will find a new game to replace this one. Here's where we .. disagree. Even if Fragola does go into NCSoft HQ and presents a good case about how lowering prices will be better for the server situation, just how many F's will those suits give? The way i see things, Innova is just the publisher. Just about the only thing Innova can do is try to push for / against changes but at the end of the day, since NCSoft holds most power (if not all) it will all end up happening. And its not like NCSoft needs Innova to tell them whats wrong with their game. They are surely well aware of the problems (i hope). If if they're not, they can "ask" their subordinates at NCWest to deliver reports concerning their playerbase satisfaction. This is why small changes can go a long way and big changes will get rejected. Not to talk about sugesting lowering their income. I'd love to see the look in their faces after hearing that one xD
Did you mean like this topic My bet is that NCSoft Korea doesn't know anything about what's going on in NA. Why? This is the gm reaction to every attempt to say what's going wrong on ncwest I know ppl who got 644 days on ban in one week because they said "lower the l2 store price". After that it's like you are sick and you go to your doctor to get an heal. The doctor says to you you have to lower the price. You don't lower the price. You die. The doctor doesn't care because he told to you what to do but you didn't want to listen. Idk innova is much more aware of l2 problems than ncwest. Only 1 or 2 ppl in ncwest know what's going on because all the others are hired and fired in a matter of a week. Link from l2 rochard It seems someone in ncwest has been fired out
The thing is... I started several times already, testing new Balthus Knights, testing the 1-85 line in Helios/Grand Crusade/Salvation, checking how Ramona started (got 101/99/80/80 Archmage in 2 months with R99 clean set and R95 retri +3 300) and I started at Hatos (new Ru server) to see Salvation clan system and overall rework, (got ISS 99/100/80/80 in 2 weeks, off already). Not counting dozens of (Lv.85-99) toons all over the place to visit all instances as when I started to be a CM I lacked certain content knowledge and it was the best way to cover that. Of course all non-L2Store, just PA, non-GM accounts, all anonymous, never being in top clans and everything with compliance to inner rules that don't allow Innova employees to use any kind of "superpowers" to get anything in the game. Not even a hat/appearance. But I never perceived and never played L2 as a solo game and I, honestly, refuse to do so. I always get a clan/party to play with. If we're getting personal here, I don't think to play L2 and making hoards of alts or soloing all the way up is a way to go at all. So my overall personal experience with L2 be it Classic or Salvation is different from what you describe here, as my personal way of playing has been different since I understood the nature of this game. I'm not saying it's the only way to play it, but I personally don't want to waste my time doing things that are definitely not efficient. So if I'd started today again, I'd start again with finding a place in a party on a class I'd enjoy - for example, healer or mage. And that's why my personal experience is not relevant to every single person here - I'm judging just by your messages. We're playing it differently. Some play even more hardcore than I (which is easy), some a lot more casually, some are ok with 1-man parties and Zaken non-stop, some are not and just want to play with 1 toon and don't have a CP and don't even want to commit to one. I also do my best to understand your problems, as I don't think the only possible way to play this game is to play my way, with a CP, there's still space for finding random groups and interacting with other people and getting new friends. But if you want me to start solo, use only quests and random groups, I'd ask "why would I do so". It's not efficient, not really worth my time. I wouldn't advise doing that to any person really if they refuse to socialize in an old-school MMO, then L2 isn't the kind of game they'd be good at (personal opinion again). The only way to start solo for me is when there's no group, but I know that I'll be searching for one anyway. As for chats, I think I know what you're talking about, I don't need to log in to read your global messages ;-) So the questions I'm asking here about solo playstyle and adena incomes etc are asked in genuine curiosity as my playstyle will always affect my behavior (nature of mind), while my goal here is to help people who still love L2 but play differently. And no kidding, while we investigate the opportunities to help people get good enough gear to sustain them to lv.101, I'd be very happy if someone with knowledge from that "more casual, more solo-style" group would help these people and make a Lv.85-99 survival guide so other community members and I could refer them to it. I can give cookies for this kind of guides
While i doubt that is true, lets say a Producer as big as NCSoft does not know what's going on with its branches. What does that say about NCSoft's management? I mean.. all they need is to ask NCWest for reports and have someone at NCSoft HQ, with a good understanding of the english language, to "spy" NCWest forums and they would get all the info they need. Some of that is classic fire fighting tactics. You can see it here if you pay attention as well. Its starts with sugestion or feedback (or w/e) and if players continue to make noise, then punishment, etc. If they (NCWest) allow for such people to freely make posts complaining about the store (or anything) they cant allow it to get out of hand because at the end of the day, its those players (not just the complainers but the ones that may be influenced by them) that pay for their food and housing. @Fragola This little experiment wasnt about soloing stuff or anything like that. It was about checking how skewed the rewards (quests and even the lack of drops on lowbie instances) are. About grouping, yes its absolutle the way it should be. But lets not forget that anyone joining in, regardless of being new or not, will find it hard to find a consistent group. Hell, even the people doing zakens and freyas are probably having a hard time doing parties with their alts army by now. Despite the game being an MMORPG, in the west there has to be a way to let people start at their own pace to then progress naturally into group play. This is why i said previously that the game wasnt localized properly and the biggest reason "private" servers are probably making a truckload of money that, not only they dont have the right to make, NCSoft and its publishers should be getting.
I will return on this subject one last time because i've already said what has to be said. NCSoft Korea has only one interest. Monthly revenue. Everyone can check how much a jewel box grand pack was worth on ncwest in january 2018 - 150 $ Everyone can check how much a jewel box grand pack was worth on ncwest in may 2018 - 300 $ Half of the player base and it's dropping down at light speed but same monthly revenue. NCSoft Korea - well fine. Edit Sorry Fragola I've read it only after posting. Our opinions are different because of this "The only way to start solo for me is when there's no group, but I know that I'll be searching for one anyway" I work for a living and honestly i can't spend 8 hours to find a group to do balok once per day. I switched to classic because of l2 store + on classic all the players are helping each other. To make a funny example on classic i saw a dwarf that was running too slow i logged in my alt (2 payed accounts) just to buff that dorf. Just to buff that dorf. on salvation I would have one shot that dorf for my pure amusement multiple times. There are 2 different worlds, one is toxic the other is not. And it's not a players' fault. Nothing personal. You can check all of my messages in here. I have always said this is an heaven compared to ncwest. Classic is the perfect example. Salvation could be better.
Go on the link you posted at the end. Read the reviews for the past 1-2 years. It's clear that NCSoft Korea has the power over everything NCWest does, or more accurate, NCWest has no power and everything comes from Korea. My conclusion is that Korea knows everything, except forum feedback, player's feedback and anything irrelevant to them. @CM Fragola That's usually how the game was meant to be played initially. When the game was still p2p a lot of the content was like that, we grouped together and we did stuff. We had solo spots as well. We loaded a buff box or asked someone to buff us and went to solo spots from time to time. The problem now is that I see a lot of inconsistencies within the game. Now we have quests, plenty of quests. Some of them are not working in groups while others are working. On top we have those annoying quests that not only that they don't work in groups but you need to kill like 400 mobs to get 100 quest items. Imagine being a healer and not a DD class, and you have to do your quests in weekend, when bots are more active. That little change would be a huge QoL for any new player, to fix these inconsistencies. We also have this issue with players going for strong duo or trio and as a new player you're kinda left out, but that's another story.
Monthly revenue it's the same, it's easy i got it. Are you saying that ncsoft korea doesn't know that on na the playerbase has dropped by an half in 3 months due to the l2 store prices and to cover this ncwest doubled the prices, and this is irrelevant?
I believe they do know. I believe, to them, its a matter of how much money the remaining half is providing. (key here, "believe" and not "know".) In the same way, i believe NCSoft views this game as something that is past its expiry date. And as such its not worth spending too much time developing content for (time = money after all) What i would like to know (as pure curiosity) is: does NCSoft have a development team assigned to this game and, if yes, how many developers and what experience do they got. That would probably say alot about this situation.
I would like to point out that NCSoft Korea has 20 developers for our version of the game (more for Classic AFAIK), and to illustrate their level of knowledge of the game, an example: During one of the Korean Cons, one of the developers from that 20-people team, when asked 'oi bro why is the aq lvl40 and not 105' responded, AND I KID YOU NOT: 'BECAUSE LOW LEVEL RANDOMS NEED SOMETHING TO FIGHT FOR TOO' XDDD
No need to speculate. Here are some of the last year reviews: https://imgur.com/a/ixICy5A They know everything because they decide everything. Reading older reviews are even more insightful. I think they share dev teams between their titles, or at least content they create. For example, there are lots of mobs that look exacly the same in L2, Aion and BnS. Some of concepts are similar as well.
From what you described @CM Fragola your opinion on how the game should be played is leaning towards the Classic playstyle, and that's fine. It seems though that neither the publishers or the devs know how to manage the f2p/p2w model, and that shows by the steady decline the game had over the years. I understand that there are more factors to that decline like bots, old game, niche genre, young ppl don't commit to hardcore games anymore etc. That doesn't change the fact that people still want to play and also pay for goods, not to mention more profit per player so less server costs compared to other games. Your "solutions" so far are short term, reactive, only try to help your income and not the players. There is no planning for growth or long term sustainability.
Maybe thats probably what happens on their servers! Yes! Thats what i chose to believe! (the alternative is me going on a search rampage and if i find proof of that ill probably knock my self out with a mighty facepalm. About the items that matter.. that is another problem with the game. A new player should not need to be some sort of Prince with a police car blinkers shoved up his.. to do some of the content this game has to offer. (sorry for the mental image) It happens because people dont want "leeches" or because they'd rather do stuff with less players in order to maximize their profit (or cut their losses). Possibly a side effect of the lack of drops, who knows. I remember the time where players on Istina would go in with regular Immortal/TW armors and apoc weapons with at least 150 element. These days, if any given instance isnt over before the first BR is over, then everyone in your party *****. Toxicity things..
Let's see the Obsidian case. According to Rodica, if i remember correctly, you need around 500 boxes for a level 5 jewel (you can safely assume more but let's go for the lucky option), so 1000 for level 6. Obsidian's box price in Aden on Core as of today: 100kk Boxes available on market: 40 1. There is not enough boxes on a market to even try an attempt, most people put a buy store and need like a month or two to get this amount 2. Assuming there were, we are talking about 100kkk in Adena, which, from point of view of average player narrows down to: a) donating ~700 euros to a RM Trader for 100kkk - Illegal so goes out the window b) donating 1000 euros to L2Store and selling it c) buying the ready item from a player for dunno, 70kkk, which again is 700 euros L2Store d) farming the adena ingame xDDDDDDDD Choices to farm 100kkk adena, just for the lolz: a) dailies, where as the test showed, you get like 20kk if you do them all, so you need hm, 100kkk/20kk = 5000 days which is 13.5 years for a single items and you need 6 of these and many more b) Atelia, where you can get quite a good farm with Drop Runes, and you dont need top gear, only something good on a puller and STS - now as an Atelia specialist here, if I remember correctly, 2h farm on runes gave 100kk to each party member with drops sold to grocery, so assuming you farm 6 hours per day, it's 300kk per day. Totalling to 9b per month to a single person. Now, the drop runes: Prestige is 4b/month, Maphrs are 1.3b, so let's say you are left wth 4b from a monthly farm. Which leaves us with 2 years for farming for 1 item, where as we have said, you need 6 of them and other expensive gear. c) Elven Village - you need a 105 tank, 105 spoiler, and 105 feoh both with more gear than u can imagine if you want to farm there seriously - at least 100b starting point on tank and 180b feoh, and full def gear on spoiler so roughly 100b. Spoiler with runes out of party. In 3h your pt will farm: ~~ 450kk in spoil, 700kk in adena, and 700kk in materials sold to grocery, so 1.85b/3h, which for 1 person (assuming spoiler is boxed and share is for 7 people) is ~250kk in 3 hours, so 500kk/day. That constitutes to 15b/month, now removing the rune cost of 6B (u need 8 runes, spoiler too) you are left with 9B. Now, the final calculation, you need 11 months to farm an Obsidian 6. And I did not include soulshot/spirit ore cost. Now, lets take some countries which citizens play on Core the most: Poland - 473 Euro minimum monthly wage Germany - 1500 Euro minimum monthly wage France - 1480 Euro minimum monthly wage Spain - 825 Euro minimum monthly wage Greece - 683 Euro minimum monthly wage Brazil - 224 Euro minimum monthly wage So, assuming the cheapest LEGAL option, which is: you are living with your parents, they provide everything, and all you earn you can spend on girls, vodka, and L2: An average: -A citizen of Poland (why would you censor how it's called I have no idea) needs to work 1 month and 15 days -German needs to work 14 days -French needs to work 15 days -Eneas needs to work 26 days -Greek needs to work 1 month and 1 day -Brazilian needs to work 3 months and 4 days for an Obsidian 6 bought from a player with L2Store. As we have said, this is one of the many items in this price range which you NEED to play competitive - and we're not here to carebear around, we're hear to smash the enemy side. This is why people laugh when you say 'go farm it'. This is what we mean by 'prices are wrong', and I know nothing can be done about that until you, Japan, China, and NCWest say "we're not buying license anymore and closing all our servers", make NCSoft abandon L2, buy rights to develop it cheap, and do whatever needs to be done to this game to make it player-friendly.
If u check ncsoft financial informations u will see that they are doing better each year no matter player base dropped a lot to all their games. This means is no point for them to actually listen to our complains. I also believe that 90% of the complainers are actually putting a lot of money into game. Aren't we all kinda hypocrites? If u dont like prices u just dont buy and either quit this game either play it on non competitive lvl.
Where u got this from?,,i checked on their site U cannot compare the end of 2017 with start of 2018, i guess u should wait the end of the year to have a good idea. I checked last 3 years on their site, 2015to2017
it actually looks like this: even if we can see value going down in recent months, NCsoft had peak just at the end of 2017, so they are far from being unsuccessful
Wake up you have to subtact mobile games revenue It looks like this http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/prfile.aspx?ID=A165313E-57B8-4A79-A84D-1AD4A819C049 Imho we aren't playing aion. 1st quarter is 31 on march and not 24 on may To Palkah I liked the vodka part of the story
