Alicia

Not really a fan of the idea to be honest. I kinda like that I don't have to place it

+1 That'd be such a huge QoL feature to have

Yup, and it would be a good testbed for permanent balance changes. So if a change is really popular it stays, if not it gets rolled back on the next balance change and such. Idk, waking up one morning to read that a bunch of class changes are coming and suddenly Warlock is the new meta for a couple of weeks just sounds really exciting. I think EE's biggest problem with longevity is everyting is so static. XLegends rarely if ever made any balance changes when admittedly they should have done plenty.

Thanks for the long post Jordan. Let me see how much of it I can address here. If I omit it then it's because I have nothing to say about it. Sad to hear about the wipes/expiration being unfeasible but that's totally understandable. I think on the topic of hoarding I don't have much left to add. I have to admit I'm one of those "no point in upgrading now" types, and I can tell you from my perspective it simply comes down to value per dollar. It's just not economical enough for me to gear up a class to +10 that will be meta for a couple of weeks, so I've been instead investing in achievements and fame, things that will carry over with me to 65. I'm not hoarding either though. Onto the gap between donators and free players. I have some thoughts, some that could potentially fix the issue. The first is that currently the baseline, bottom of the barrel resource for upgrading is not freely available, that's regular safety stones. They are only relevant to get equipment up to +6 so I think if it could be incorporated into loot tables it would make things significantly better. How about throwing it into boss tables to encourage people to run more trials and 0/10s? Hell, it would help bring people back to lower level content so newer players can catch up after the server moves on. They could be NT so they don't have an effect on the economy. Then on the altar, you could have lucky+ stuff instead, and tweak rates accordingly. The alpaca coin suggestion was pretty funny. But those are too easy to get and I don't want to spend all day thrashing dyes just to get a few stones. Onto longetivity: I'm taking some inspiration from destiny here, but here's some random thoughts: - Have time-limited changes to loot drops on certain dungeons. Perhaps adding things like essences or alphas? Or whatever you think might be balanced. - Introduce *hard* versions of dungeons with higher % drops, and perhaps some unique drops. - More extreme balance changes with the condition that they are temporary. Like having a special bard week where vocal bomb becomes a triple hit. Stuff to make us shuffle around our gear andf think of new possibilities. Age of Empires 2 DE is constantly changing the balance of the game to bring a fresh feeling to it, and it's a 20+ year old game at this point.

So I've been playing for a week now, and I love what you guys have done, but I think there's a few key issues that need to be addressed. The Hoarding I think it goes without saying that hoarding is a problem. I joined in late and it's difficult to find anything from essences and stardust to even regular safety stones. Even with the gold to spare, demand far, far outweights supply and those buying aren't actually using the stuff they buy. This is I believe, for two key reasons: - Low supply: This I believe was done to keep people from going full +10 from the get go, and I quite like seeing peeps walking around with +2s and +3s. It's a fresh change from the awaken server, but on the flip side, even if you have the desire to go into PVP, unless you've been playing from the start or cash in like a mobidick it just doesn't make financial sense to try and upgrade equipment right now. - No penalty for hoarding: I've heard someone else suggest it, but bringing back SS expiration would probably get rid of this in a heartbeat. If you buy or roll a SS. Either use it or sell it to someone who will. Proposed solution: Increase supply and compensate by allowing SS, essences and chisels to expire. Players will have no other option but to upgrade and gear up for the current meta. If you decide to do this, give fair warning though Gap between AP buyers and free players I've put a hefty amount of AP into the game already. I run my own company and every hour I don't spend working has a cost attached to it, but as things stand right now, I can't imagine how a free player could concievably get their achievements done in a reasonable amount of time. It mainly comes as a side effect of the hoarding of essences and stardust, but for example it cost me somewhere along the lines of 60-70k to get just over half my stuff done without essences (due to lack of supply at the time). Essences themselves don't even lower the cost most of the time, and some times it's the other way around. The primary culprits are rings and necklaces, which have success rates as low as 36%. This compounds with the lack of safety stone supply to make PVP a sport that is really expensive to get into. I think many of us here agree that not having achievements done cripples your ability to compete in any meaningful way sometimes even more than having a +3 weapon does. Proposed solution: Bump the craft rates of rings and necklaces to be in line with weapons. This should drop the costs to about 2/3rds of what they are now. Longevity It seems people are complaining about lack of stuff to do. I don't feel that way, but one possible solution would be to introduce regular balance changes to spice things up a bit. Making it something fluid and transitory should also give Jordan free rein to experiment. That's all I've got to say. Other than that, having a blast