Blacksmith Invites - Perhaps an idea for the future?

I just completed an entire 50 count jar of arena runs in one sitting. The most I've ever done at once by about 40. I've never liked the arena, that kind of monotony mixed with random bouts of "haha 1-shot crit of death, enjoy your wasted rl dollars" never really attracted me. However, with the introduction of the smithy and the chance of improving my armor I jumped right in.

So now here I am, I've completed 76 team matches and another 40 or so solo matches. The vast majority of these were perfects. Through all of these runs I've not received an invite. I've read the posts saying "70% of people doing arena have them" and "these are rare but not too hard to get" and I sit there wondering "How is this not adding up? RNG is one thing but this..."

I would like to propose that the next time you design a system like this that you consider putting in some sort of ceiling. A slowly increasing chance of the drop the more you run the event. It doesn't have to ever reach 100%, but consider games like D3's legendary system. The more runs you make without a legendary actually increases the drop rate until you get one then it resets.

That way, even though you're giving us a reason to continue spending $100s of dollars on an event, we're not walking away so angry and bitter that we vow to never buy into another simucoin event again. At the end of the day you want to make money and we want you to make money... there has to be a middle ground here.

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Duskruin Data

Arena Entries: 215 Arena Kills: 5343 Arena Wins: 209 Arena Perfect Wins: 207 Arena Surrenders: 2 Arena Deaths: 3

Team Matches: 0 Team Wins: 0

Sewer Entries: 0 Sewer Rats Found: 0 Bandit Caches Found: 0

Smithy Invite Acquired: No ```

This isn't a "woe is me" kind of thread, it's meant to be a suggestion. I've gone through the many stages of anger already tonight. =p

Funny enough, I got my smithy invite on the next run after posting that.

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Duskruin Data

Arena Entries: 215 Arena Kills: 5358 Arena Wins: 210 Arena Perfect Wins: 208 Arena Surrenders: 2 Arena Deaths: 3

Team Matches: 0 Team Wins: 0

Sewer Entries: 0 Sewer Rats Found: 0 Bandit Caches Found: 0

Smithy Invite Acquired: Yes ```

I have to agree with the sentiment that spawned this thread. It's patently ridiculous to hear about people spending hundreds of runs and not getting this invite. I have serious doubts about the value of this invite justifying people spending 500.00 in an attempt to acquire it. Riend's suggestion is an excellent compromise, I think.

I'm not convinced. I think the bigger problem is that no one knows what the details are about the smithy, yet we're asked to assume all the risk that it's worth it. Keep in mind that the opportunity to add padding to armor with the previously mentioned other features was heretofore impossible. To me this is on the scale of banes, and should be exceedingly rare and I'll reluctantly add, expensive.

Damn. I did 101 runs on Kips and never got one because I never won the arena. I loaded up my shit tier level 11 warmage and got one in like 7 runs. Again, on monk, easy as pie after about 11 runs. I guess after my main sucked bad enough RNGesus decided to grace my shitty alts.

``` Arena Entries: 113 Arena Kills: 2058 Arena Wins: 0 Arena Perfect Wins: 0 Arena Surrenders: 5 Arena Deaths: 6

Team Matches: 0 Team Wins: 0

Sewer Entries: 0 Sewer Rats Found: 0 Bandit Caches Found: 0

Smithy Invite Acquired: No ```

UAC warriors have a rough time.

@archigeek I guess my question is, what price do you consider "too much" to spend trying to get an invite for something you still need bs for?

I'm not talking 50 runs and you're guaranteed. I'd be fine seeing a 250-300. That's still 5-6 books or roughly $300. Before you're even talking about the BS you'll need.

I don't think it's asking too much to give us at least something we can rely on.

I would consider it like a T5 in digging. It's just not guaranteed.

@allereli said in Blacksmith Invites - Perhaps an idea for the future?:

I would consider it like a T5 in digging. It's just not guaranteed.

I would have to agree with this. It felt like trying to find a T5

Also, if you don't want to spend more to get an invite, then don't, especially if you're worried it won't be worth it. The smithy is just for one type of service, so it's almost guaranteed some people with invites won't be using them. But even if you don't get it, it'll still come around next time etc. Just buy something else.

The RNG of the invites is ridiculous. The point of DR was allowing some high end items and services to be available to people as they work for it with the knowledge that once you have that amount of BS - you can generally get it. Removing the enchant/padding certs, locking it behind a ridiculous grind, charging for it, allowing only 1 item per duskruin run (initially), and STILL paying for it - its incredibly overboard.

This feels infinitely worse than the normal merchant spinning or such - and a hell of a lot more expensive.

@archsenex said in Blacksmith Invites - Perhaps an idea for the future?:

Also, if you don't want to spend more to get an invite, then don't, especially if you're worried it won't be worth it. The smithy is just for one type of service, so it's almost guaranteed some people with invites won't be using them. But even if you don't get it, it'll still come around next time etc. Just buy something else.

You'll have to forgive me for getting a bit uppity here, but I'm starting to get really tired of reading "you don't have to do it." Clearly I want it, which is why I'm doing it.

I'm merely making the suggestion that the general player base would be a lot happier walking away with something for their hundreds of dollars than nothing. And happy customers = repeat customers.

Not saying make it easy or anything.

@riend

Was talking more to archigeek. But as for your "Walk away with nothing for hundreds of dollars" comment... do you throw away the bloodscrip you get?

I often give it to friends, actually. But I understand what you mean.

Selling my invite for 2 - 50 entries. I mean, truth be told, while the invites are not transferable, easy enough to give bloodscrip and such. Defeats the purpose if everyone gets an entry easily. I'd say a 1:100 chance is high enough.

Gating it behind money is one thing, gating it behind money and a random chance is just meh. You pick one or the other. You dont make people spend cash to get the service AND make it a gamble.

Why? Isn't that exactly what the pendant is already? It's really no different.

The pendant isn't mechanical.

So, without scarcity of mechanical benefits, isn't it just a pure pay to get gear?

You really don't think thats what duskruin is already? They literally said "we are hindering the release by scaling prices, but you want to pay that, go ahead".

That genie is LONG out of the bottle.

Making it random adds an additional layer of limiting how many go out.

No shit, so does scaling prices etc. But Simutronics already admitted to being willing to ignore balance issues for cash sales w/ scaling prices, so why even bother aggravating people with limiting factors, other than to drum up more sales? I'm not anti simucoin/cash sales, but there is a point where it goes to far. It's rapidly approaching that point.

At some point, it will prove more beneficial both from a time and a value standpoint to just buy the service/product you want directly rather than playing Simu's game. I'd suggest gathering funds (cash, silver, BPs, etc) and wait for the Smithy to open. Offer to buy someone's slot and a bonus for having the work done on your item.

Is it ideal? No, but if the process isn't working for you, you must change tactics.

Yeah I know its gonna be annoying to hear, but Im posting it anyway!

In plat most of the stuff doesnt scale, and is often at a steep discount. You can get that cool ass gear for literally a fraction of the price, especially since we often get freebies.

Just throwin it out there!

@ordim said in Blacksmith Invites - Perhaps an idea for the future?:

No shit, so does scaling prices etc. But Simutronics already admitted to being willing to ignore balance issues for cash sales w/ scaling prices, so why even bother aggravating people with limiting factors, other than to drum up more sales? I'm not anti simucoin/cash sales, but there is a point where it goes to far. It's rapidly approaching that point.

It's likely too difficult to scale based upon gear properties AND how often the smithy is accessed. So you limit it in other ways.

Except, they said it will scale based on gear properties.

edit: the example was for vanilla gear pricing.

One example was vanilla one wasn't.

I went back and read it again, there are three examples, to show case scaling

For padding a plain jane 6x armor: Using 20 ‘services’ will cost you 6125 bloodscrip Using all 25 ‘services’ will cost you 13825 bloodscrip

Thats a big jump from the 20 to 25 services

For padding 6x armor with some TD and some resistances: Using 20 ‘services’ will cost you 10500 bloodscrip Using all 25 ‘services’ will cost you 23681 bloodscrip

Another big jump for that last 5 services

For weighting legit vorpal sword of doom (I’m talking borderline unobtainable stats): Using 20 ‘services’ will cost you 27765 bloodscrip Using all 25 ‘services’ will cost you 62700 bloodscrip

look at that jump. It'll be interesting when the Smithy opens in April.

@ordim said in Blacksmith Invites - Perhaps an idea for the future?:

For padding 6x armor with some TD and some resistances: Using 20 ‘services’ will cost you 10500 bloodscrip Using all 25 ‘services’ will cost you 23681 bloodscrip

I'm hoping that's my armor they're talking about.

look at that jump. It'll be interesting when the Smithy opens in April.

Heyo!