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Wish List Make Crystals A Mission Reward

Jambon

New Member
Been grinding Zyn's for so long now, many many thousands killed and no crystal drops in 8 days to anyone. Not sure if it's regular variance or a bigger macro change to drop rate behind the scenes by MA. Either case it's got me thinking...

Drop rates for these Power Crystals has several times been a problem with this mission chain and various "fixes" have been attempted over the years that never seem to fully solve the issue. Completing the Zorra mission chain still seems out of reach to most. The mission is plenty costly enough without the added wild card of needing like 60 rare loot drops of crystals and Lazidol parts. Some might argue it's easier and more likely to loot a rare UL gun directly off a mob.

I'm all for a challenge and grinding but it gets unreasonable when MA decides... "yeah we're just not gonna drop this for a couple weeks/months cause reasons - deal with it." And in that situation players get frustrated, give up, leave the planet, steer other away from doing the mission due to it's perceived impossibility which leads to lost revenue for the PP.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but Cyrene staff don't have any control over the specific drop rates of items, right? And if the drop rate is nerfed what recourse does a PP have? Contact MA begging them to tweak things when they get around to it? And even then it's 100% MA's discretion how they choose to tweak things which to me often seems to be a case of increase X's drop rate but lower Y's to always keep a bottleneck. You can clearly see a decrease in Lazidol Brain and shell fragments drop rate as power crystal drop rate was increased and I don't think this is coincidence.

Instead, I'm proposing that these epic mission chains were changed to not rely on rare random loot drops where we're at the mercy of MA's loot table algo but are given out as calculated mission rewards. Of course you could still have the crystals be lootable too for that added "jackpot wow" factor and feeling of being able to "beat the system". But having a mission guarantees a minimum acquisition rate outside of being solely at the mercy of MA's loot algo.

For example: A repeatable mission that rewards 1 weakened crystal for every 5000 merfolken killed and a mission that rewards 1 lesser crystal for every 3000 zyn killed. (Of course I would be ok with having to pay TT value of the crystal at that point too.) Could do something similar with lazidol since there is a clear skewing of drop rates of needed rare loots there too (Lazidol Shell Fragments anyone?). Maybe X kills of lazidol + needing some cyrene mission tokens and or combination of unique more common Cyrene loots that currently have no real use like Zyn Lesser Claws. It would be nice for some of those things to have a use lol Though I do hesitate to suggest anything loot based because I feel like that's just going to lead to MA licking their lips and rubbing their hands together saying "that's where the new bottle neck is where we wet our beak boys!" They have no problem making even common loots rare AF when it suits them - they do it all the time. But definitive, specific "Do X, Get X" completable missions can't be messed with. Which is why I lean more towards cyrene mission tokens. They're more liquid and can keep the door open for plenty of missions to generate them. Encouraging people to do regular missions on cyrene and solidifying a markup of the tokens.

Going this route would not only put the control back into the hands of Cyrene staff but would guarantee a specific cycle earnings for Cyrene, would guarantee people could grind to get what they need without being screwed by "luck" or "bad timing" and would give players an opportunity to grind to create those things for players that don't want to grind, not to mention creating healthy markups all around. Cyrene mission tokens would have more use and the crystals would still have a nice markup due to their cost of acquiring. Profitability via crystal "loots" becomes less based on a single lucky loot but on consistent means of marginalizing losses as you grind to get the crystal. This would also keep the crystals from their markup getting too nuts.

I hope this will be considered strongly.
 
Last edited:

Kris | Cyrene

Lo and Behold, the Fixer of Bugs
Staff member
Hey Jambon,

I plan to do a more through reply this thread when I have more time to dedicate to a detailed response, also I'd need to do have some internal discussion as well. I'll make a detailed reply as soon as I can.

Cheers,
Kris
 

Kris | Cyrene

Lo and Behold, the Fixer of Bugs
Staff member
Hey Jambon,

Sorry for the delay, we've been wrapping up some stuff here. Anyhow, let’s go over this posting.

Been grinding Zyn's for so long now, many many thousands killed and no crystal drops in 8 days to anyone. Not sure if it's regular variance or a bigger macro change to drop rate behind the scenes by MA. Either case it's got me thinking...

Drop rates for these Power Crystals has several times been a problem with this mission chain and various "fixes" have been attempted over the years that never seem to fully solve the issue. Completing the Zorra mission chain still seems out of reach to most. The mission is plenty costly enough without the added wild card of needing like 60 rare loot drops of crystals and Lazidol parts. Some might argue it's easier and more likely to loot a rare UL gun directly off a mob.

I'm all for a challenge and grinding but it gets unreasonable when MA decides... "yeah we're just not gonna drop this for a couple weeks/months cause reasons - deal with it." And in that situation players get frustrated, give up, leave the planet, steer other away from doing the mission due to it's perceived impossibility which leads to lost revenue for the PP.

I don’t know if anything has been changed on the back end with them, we do keep an eye on these (and many other) drops internally with a lot of running tallies.

We’ve taken several steps to make the mission more streamlined, especially in consideration to the drop rates and summoning Lazidol. It’s been a step in the right direction but one of the benefits of being a persistent online game is that we get to provide updates to make the game better.

Of course, grinding for a certain loot can take a toll, and while we’re always working and looking for ways to improve loot composition, this is something that we’re closely looking at, but I think this taps into more of the mentality of the grind itself.

Instead, I'm proposing that these epic mission chains were changed to not rely on rare random loot drops where we're at the mercy of MA's loot table algo but are given out as calculated mission rewards. Of course you could still have the crystals be lootable too for that added "jackpot wow" factor and feeling of being able to "beat the system". But having a mission guarantees a minimum acquisition rate outside of being solely at the mercy of MA's loot algo.

This is something that I think is really reasonable, and think/hope that we could ideally find a path forward with this structure. Of course, we have to present and outline this correctly and make sure that it’s clear what is expected from the players and what we need from MindArk so it remains in balance.

Idea iteration can change a lot from inception to execution and I don't know exactly what we'll need to adjust to make this a reality, but I think it's a potential way forward from a stepping stone point of view.

For example: A repeatable mission that rewards 1 weakened crystal for every 5000 merfolken killed and a mission that rewards 1 lesser crystal for every 3000 zyn killed. (Of course I would be ok with having to pay TT value of the crystal at that point too.) Could do something similar with lazidol since there is a clear skewing of drop rates of needed rare loots there too (Lazidol Shell Fragments anyone?). Maybe X kills of lazidol + needing some cyrene mission tokens and or combination of unique more common Cyrene loots that currently have no real use like Zyn Lesser Claws. It would be nice for some of those things to have a use lol Though I do hesitate to suggest anything loot based because I feel like that's just going to lead to MA licking their lips and rubbing their hands together saying "that's where the new bottle neck is where we wet our beak boys!" They have no problem making even common loots rare AF when it suits them - they do it all the time. But definitive, specific "Do X, Get X" completable missions can't be messed with. Which is why I lean more towards cyrene mission tokens. They're more liquid and can keep the door open for plenty of missions to generate them. Encouraging people to do regular missions on cyrene and solidifying a markup of the tokens.


I think these are all viable ways forward, again in the rough sense and it’ll need to be balanced by us in conjunction with MA.

One of the big things we're trying to do this year is to make sure that the loot on Cyrene has a use, even if it's just a small one and if it doesn't have a use I think that we should try to phase it out (which is WAY easier said than done, and of course will be telegraphed to players). The lesser class for example are now a big part of the crafting mission and I'd like to do more things like that in the future.


Going this route would not only put the control back into the hands of Cyrene staff but would guarantee a specific cycle earnings for Cyrene, would guarantee people could grind to get what they need without being screwed by "luck" or "bad timing" and would give players an opportunity to grind to create those things for players that don't want to grind, not to mention creating healthy markups all around. Cyrene mission tokens would have more use and the crystals would still have a nice markup due to their cost of acquiring. Profitability via crystal "loots" becomes less based on a single lucky loot but on consistent means of marginalizing losses as you grind to get the crystal. This would also keep the crystals from their markup getting too nuts.

I think that this is a much better way forward provided that we can get enough traction with MA to allow something like this to be attempted. I don’t want to call it guaranteed as there are behind the scenes things that of course I can’t share.

Because a lot of gaming is about feeling and if you can have a way where you know your grind is less on the outcome of RNG and more on the outcome of allowing player agency and targeted goals I think that that can only be better for the planet and the universe as a whole.

And then it makes getting a crystal in your loot feel even better now it's like a jackpot kind of feeling instead of a finally kind of feeling.


I hope this will be considered strongly.

Consider that hope accurately manifested =)

I’d also like to say thank you for making this post, I think there was a lot of good, constructive and realistic feedback put into it.

Cheers,
Kris
 

Vulkana

Cyrene Crusader
"For example: A repeatable mission that rewards 1 weakened crystal for every 5000 merfolken killed and a mission that rewards 1 lesser crystal for every 3000 zyn killed."

Best suggestion all month. It'd also make the hunt for mistangled zyn horns (or whatever the name is) more rewarding and motivating.


And make the Lazidol parts droppable from mission of cousre. (or a chain of missions, so that after x mission you'll get all parts needed for greater crystal).


Simple solution (yeah right, MA will use 5 years to implement..) to a decade long annoying problem!
 
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