Refine tickets, crafting them and new players

karunatan

So, not too long ago we got an update which decreased the drop rate for illusion refine boxes in their respectful dungeons. On top of that, the drop rate of illusion stones was also reduced. In exchange, we got this illusion dungeon store NPC, which sells the regular box for 600 illusion stones per piece.

Now, I remember when I started out as a new player. I spent my fair share of time in illusion dungeons, farming the refine boxes and stones for all my newbie gear needs in order to progress in the game. It was grindy, but it allowed me to save zeny by a metric f***ton. Later on, the zeny I saved because of this was useful when it was finally time for me to start refining and grading lvl 2 armor and lvl 5 weapons.

I've noticed that due to this update, the prices for refine boxes and tickets have gone up, and I've noticed people seem to be somewhat confused about the update. Some are even under the impression that you can turn any upgraded weapon/armor (even from the antiquities) into refine tickets, even though that couldn't be further away from the truth. The list of items you can use to turn into tickets is already narrow as it is, not to mention that most - if not all - don't even come with a refine box to begin with.

While I'm already an established player and can easily just get the raw zeny to buy the tickets I need, I acknowledge that this isn't the case for new players. Farming enough illusion stones to buy just one measly box from the NPC means doing 40 illusion turn ins. I honestly doubt a new player's willingness to go ahead and do all that for that one refine box, which can a) do nothing (refine rate stays the same) or b) lowers the refine rate. Now, if the illusion stones were dropping at a higher rate than .25% in the lower level illusion dungeons (which is what the new players are capable of doing with Eden/Grace gears), this would be a whole different ball game.

The options I propose are as follows:

Reverse the drop rate changes made to illusion refine boxes and/or illusion stones. If this is done, I wouldn't mind higher pricing in the NPC shop.
Significantly lower the refine box prices on the NPC into something sensible - just for the normal boxes.
Add illusion refine boxes into turn in rewards - just 1 box is enough to make this work imo.
????
Profit.

Let's cut some slack for anyone new who wants to start their amazing journey on this server. 💙

EvilLumi

karunatan I'm sorry that you even had to make this post, it's really disappointing. I wholeheartedly agree with you, and would appreciate that the staff not nerf anything below grace set, as it just makes it far more difficult for new players to understand why this is a 50x server and the gearing process, even at low levels is set to 5x.

I will upvote you and hope for this change. Have a good day, sweety.

Crosscy

I prefer if all instance gears(lvl4) be added to what can be turned to tickets. If not all throw away seem very wasteful, only so many newbies I can keep sets for.

Ezekiel

I would like to second this motion from Karunatan. I am a new player, I literally only got to the point of being able to farm the boxes after they were nerfed. It has made making money as a new player very difficult and really restricted access to being able to get refine tickets. I believe it puts a rather significant choke point that only effects newer players, older players have enough money and gear that it wont matter to them as there is more profitable things for them to do then do refine tickets. All the change has done as impacted the newer players that still need to get gear and zenny to be able to do anything.

I agree with the options proposed.

Ezekiel

I would really love an adjustment on this <3

orpheuswl

It would be great for the changes to be reversed since Illusion gear is a must go for like 99% of the cases, it helps new players ALOT and keep the new player base with a good and reasonable option to progress. i definitely disagree with this change and don't see the point to make the early game harder since 85% of players are late/end game, it would just keep new people away for it being too hard in the start.

ryuseigun

I agree that the nerfed box and stone drop rates really just hurt the progress of new players, and hope to see a reversal/adjustment as well. I remember back when I was still considering if I should try the server or not, I saw from the wiki how accessible refine tickets were via illusion boxes and thought it would be an immense help for newbies in making progress. It's literally one of the reasons that sold me to the server.

Let's not forget that illusion stones are used for enchanting as well. It's already a stone sink considering there's no guaranteed enchants for them, and you could easily spend hundreds just resetting and rerolling to hit the right Double Rune of [Stat]2 combo if you're especially unlucky. New players who choose to make their own illu gear would then have to split their stone funds into enchants and boxes, the latter which OP said feels also expensive considering it can just retain/downgrade the gear's refine.

karunatan

Bump 😴

Kokomium

The nerf to Illusion boxes drop rate makes absolutely no sense, benefits literally nobody, and is severely detrimental to growth of the server.

Ezekiel

bump