Yoshi P / Dev Team: FAVOR System - Please Fix This BROKEN System

[Sibyll]

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They handled it the way I'd hoped. They reduced the time sink but did it in a way that didn't punish the people that had already spent Favors. A flat yield bonus would've been a slap in the face.

So you think the system is OK as long as you are able to craft? C'mon, you can't be that simple minded.

As long as the crafted materials and crafted gears doesn't flow in the market, its broken. No one is selling and no one is buying for numerous reasons.

One of the biggest complaints is people couldn't craft because they had to spend 3-6 hrs gathering mats to do one 5 minute synth. This patch reduced that time to 1-2 hrs. The reduced time might encourage gatherers to sell the favor materials at more affordable prices.

As the person above mentioned, the recipes are garbage. You have irrelevant combat gear and DoH pyramid scheme gear that is currently for glamours and epeen. No amount of favor adjust is going to make these items sell unless the favor mats were free/trivial to acquire (ex: Law tomes).

[seorin]

A flat yield bonus would've been a slap in the face.

This gets mentioned a lot, but it doesn't hold up. The reward for your effort is getting items sooner. We all know they'll be easier to get later. Early adopters can sell their mats at a higher price or gear up sooner. Either way, they got their reward so it's not unfair to make changes. What's unfair is rewarding them perpetually by letting them get further and further ahead.

Imagine a race track with hurdles. Everyone knows the hurdles will be removed, but several racers jump them anyway. When the hurdles are removed, those who jumped still have a head start on those who waited. That head start is the reward for their effort.

A fair compromise would be to announce a detailed fix ahead of time - like a 30 day price guarantee, but a warning instead of a refund. They did this for atma and it worked great. Some waited, some didn't, but both groups knew what to expect and chose accordingly.

[Thrustie]

This gets mentioned a lot, but it doesn't hold up. The reward for your effort is getting items sooner. We all know they'll be easier to get later. Early adopters can sell their mats at a higher price or gear up sooner. Either way, they got their reward so it's not unfair to make changes. What's unfair is rewarding them perpetually by letting them get further and further ahead.

The problem with your argument in this scenario is that the ONLY reason currently to get the gear early is to be ready for the next set of recipes. So what have I gained from my favor participation thus far? Nothing. I have gear with great stats that I can't craft anything with. I haven't reaped any reward at all. The whole purpose of me gearing up faster with favors is so that I'll be on the first boat when the new recipes arrive (and because I enjoy crafting). So if they had flipped it around so everyone could obtain double what I have, I'm essentially being punished for participating in the system early. Instead they've made it so everyone can more easily be even with me (not put me further ahead like you mentioned) which is great.

[Sibyll]

A fair compromise would be to announce a detailed fix ahead of time - like a 30 day price guarantee, but a warning instead of a refund. They did this for atma and it worked great. Some waited, some didn't, but both groups knew what to expect and chose accordingly.

You mean like this?

Greetings,We are planning to make adjustments to the duration of the Favors purchased with red scrips and the frequency of the Concealed Nodes spawn so that it'll become easier for everyone to participate. Once we have more information, we'll make further announcements. We appreciate your patience while we work on these adjustments.

The drop rates are fine: 4-5 Favor is approximately 20 favor mats. The comes out to be 1 Rowena Gathering Token and 1 Rowena Crafting Token per Ingot/Lumber etc. Sounds like it's exactly what they were aiming for.

Well thats not true. You could have made and sold items for considerably more then I'm sure they now sell for. So saying you did not gain anything from this isn't quite right. On top of that, having more items on the market benefits you as well.

This current change will increase favor materials on the market. How do you know for a fact the problem was the yield per favor and not the yield per time that was discouraging people from doing these?

[Ranzan]

This current change will increase favor materials on the market. How do you know for a fact the problem was the yield per favor and not the yield per time that was discouraging people from doing these?

The opposite could be asked also. How you know the problem was the amount and not the amount of the yields? I know the (fix?) just happened but how are so sure more items will be on the market board when the yields are the same?

Everyone is reporting it's the same rate like when we had to go 15 mins (3 per favor). Plus people are still gated to 9 tokens per week. I'm really not seeing how that translates to more on the market board. Cause my server they are waaaaay to much gil atm.

[MN_14]

I think the adjustment will provide a bit of an initial boost at least since some gatherers will want to try gathering the favor items and selling them for high prices since it's easier now. I'm seeing some more listings on my server now, but prices are still high. If sales are slow however, they might not be as eager to spend their gatherer tokens.

Another thing to consider though is that a number of gatherers will soon have enough tokens to exchange for their i180 chest piece and primary tool, the most important pieces of gear. I can see some of them using additional tokens to exchange for favors if they believe that they can capitalize on high prices. The faster drop rate should increase the supply on favor items much quicker than before.

I also think time is probably an issue for some players since I could never spend over 11 hours a week gathering favor items myself. The number of red scrips weren't even a problem for me since I could never reach my weekly upper limit on favor items.

[Aeyis]

This current change will increase favor materials on the market. How do you know for a fact the problem was the yield per favor and not the yield per time that was discouraging people from doing these?

Forgive me as I just woke up, but wasnt that exactly what I wrote?

There are 3 groups of people who would sell favor materials on the mb.

-Those that want to farm them for gil from the start.
-Those more interested in gearing up first, then selling them.
-Crafters who farm their own and sell their leftovers.

Favor yield per time was what discouraged those gatherers looking to make gil.
This change makes it so more of them (or any, really) will farm them for gil.


However, favors still come from red scrips meaning that those who first wanted to gear up still have to do so. The favor change won't make them farm materials and sell them on the mb.


The third group, whose biggest problem was always the limit to the materials they could obtain is a bit of an odd one. Some will now farm the favors, others still wont.
However since they are doing this to obtain materials for themselves, you wont see many more favors materials from their actions, however you will see more finished items, or refined materials.


Overall, with the favor change you will see more materials on the mb.
Something to the benefit of everyone, including those that already spend all of their own favor materials.

However for a crafter, the real limitation is still the limit on refined materials, and subsequently the limit on finished items.


That said, as prices drop I'm sure availability of materials will drop again as well. Keep in mind most people will not be very interested into favors. And those that are can only farm so many of them per week.
Right now supply is relatively high for both favor and refined materials because everyone has been saving tokens for a month.

I'm really not seeing how that translates to more on the market board. Cause my server they are waaaaay to much gil atm.

Less time consuming means you are more likely to attract people interested to farm them at all. However as you say, it does not increase the maximum supply of materials on the market which is still limited with a weekly cap.

[seorin]

The problem with your argument in this scenario is that the ONLY reason currently to get the gear early is to be ready for the next set of recipes. So what have I gained from my favor participation thus far? Nothing.

You still made the choice to do it knowing it would be easier later. If you didn't enjoy it or at least feel the head start was worth it, you can only blame yourself for assuming you'd get a reward that was never promised nor implied. It's like complaining about buying a game the week before the big Steam holiday sale. You know the sale happens every year, it's not 'unfair' when it does. You even benefit from more people to play with.

You mean like this?

Yes, which is why it would have been fair for them to increase yield, reduce RNG, or any number of other potential fixes. Ideally they could give even more detailed info ahead of time, but I'll take what I can get.

[Thrustie]

You still made the choice to do it knowing it would be easier later. If you didn't enjoy it or at least feel the head start was worth it, you can only blame yourself for assuming you'd get a reward that was never promised nor implied. It's like complaining about buying a game the week before the big Steam holiday sale. You know the sale happens every year, it's not 'unfair' when it does. You even benefit from more people to play with.

When I started favors 5 weeks ago I had no idea they would be made easier so that's a pretty big leap. I have no one to blame for anything since they didn't increase the yield? I elected to continue to do them the last 2 weeks after the announcement adjustments would be made because I was fairly confident they would recognize that increasing the yield would be unfair and unnecessary.

Haha it's NOTHING like the comparison you just made! They're not even remotely similar! Considering they didn't even announce it until 2 weeks ago and furthermore DIDN'T increase the yield, obviously it's not at all like the certainty of your big steam sale. Wow what a stretch.

[seorin]

When I started favors 5 weeks ago I had no idea they would be made easier so that's a pretty big leap.

If you believed it would stay exactly as it was forever, then there's not much point in having a discussion. In a month or 3.2 or 3.5 or 4.0 it'll be much easier or just replaced outright. It's a matter of when not if. The only benefit to doing it now is your head start. You get it first. You can sell for the most. If you don't care about being first and don't capitalize on the opportunity it affords you, it's not "unfair" when your work goes to waste because you wasted it yourself.