Fixing P2W On Olympus

[SSM_GOD]

Hey guys

So as you might have heard, there was the recent 'raid' and 'attack' on mana from an anti-p2w group. While I mostly disagree that ManaCube is really pay to win, there certainly are some aspects that could be considered as such.
If you know me, you know that I'm huge for play to win and free to play; hence why I'm patron without spending much of my own money. I'm a user and abuser of cubit and mana farms >;D

On Olympus, I'd say the most multi-seasonal pay to win factor are svas. Unbreakable armor and sharp 10 items cant be challenged by anyone who is free to play.
My suggestion to fix this is to make more sets like Ancient armor from trials shop. Unbraking 10 and prot 5 is huge for f2p players. There is the mystic set from kilton, but I think that needs a huge boost. I think non-ranked players should have an armor kit. Donors have 5 free full diamond sets a week, but f2p players have to buy their sets from ah.

This season, with the addition of the farming leaderboard and removal of collector and seller minions, we've seen exclusive items like tp pads, choppers, and inf chests have a larger demand. Although tp pads can be gotten from pond, they're pretty rare and are easily obtainable by spending money on monthly crates.
For this, I suggest we follow in the footsteps taken earlier for factions and add these items to Kilton or trials shop, or make them common in the legendary/ancient crates so that keys from pond have a chance to give them.
Trust me, these items are not the reason people buy monthly crates xD

Currently, non-ranked players do not receive fly time from voting. This is not acceptable when flying is so critical for things like building the farms needed for harvest leaderboard, or mana pond. At least stop punishing people for using and telling others how to get fly at spawn.
This should be fixed like, yesterday. Seriously.


What a lot of people claim to be pay to win, which I disagree with, are sell multipliers and fortune 30+ pickaxes. I figured I'd include these and explain why they're not p2w rather than ignore them.
Sell multipliers from ranks aren't working properly, so that argument holds little weight at this time. But let's say they did work. MVP and MVP+ would get +0.15 and elite would get +0.25. With fortune 25, the average block loot is 13.5. At level 30 it's 15, and 35 it's 18.5. That means up to 5 more terracotta per block or up to 100$ more per terracotta. Which turns into about 10k$ additional per inventory with fortune 35 over 25. The differences in these are so small that differences in mining techniques make a bigger difference.


What would be the effect of this?
Well, I think there'd be no negative outcome. I imagine new players seeing their way to being the best without spending money. And if the trend continues, if the player sticks around they'll be likely to donate to the server later on.
I do not think a change like this would change the collectability of items. There will still be the desire to collect, trade, buy and sell one of a kind items, especially with the custom textures.
It's pretty much unimaginable for me that this would have an effect on the server's income. You rarely ever see people buying black market items already, and this change wouldn't remove the ability to buy the items from the webstore if you wanted it fast.

What's your take on this?
Do you have any additional suggestions on how to fix these issues? or have other issues you'd like to bring up?
What about if you're against this change? I'd really love to hear from youz people especially.

 

[oWinqs]

Hello!

First, I'd like to say that I LOVE your posts like this; it really promotes some critical thinking in relation to the issues of server.

I think that the whole argument of P2W boils down to the very important argument of a server making profit; do you think it is reasonable for Manacube to make money, and in the process, players get benefits?

I'm not going to take a side here since I think there are good arguments on both sides. I will say though, the points you made about donators getting armor kits, and SV Items all cost money simply for an advantage. Sure, it does create an unbalanced landscape, but donators pay for that privilege.

I do like your point about adding items like this to shops that you can get by just grinding, like kilton among others. Obviously, if the list of patrons makes it clear, people are always going to support the server. I think there is a balance between server profits and OP player benefits, and I think Manacube does this pretty well.

The strategy for many game modes (excluding creative, manapvp, etc) is to use things like cubits and SVI's to gain an advantage; I've gained 220 mil on skyblock without doing anything but selling cubits from voting.

Everyone has an opportunity to gain an "advantage" to say. Nothing is truly exclusive!

I'll finish up since I'm rambling on; if you play enough, you can get to a point of a donator. It's hard, yes, but as I mentioned before, donators pay for that privilege. Anyways, I'd love to hear your points SSM!

Your friendly skyblock player,
Wingy Boi <3

 

[Cookie Kat]

I believe these are really great suggestions! SVAS are definitely op, and it’s pretty P2W. Even with cubits, it can be hard to get good SVA items. I think it would be cool to see new items, perhaps pickaxes that have special perks. But instead of these items being obtained from p2w crates, you would grind for them. It could maybe be something purchasable from kilton or trials. Even perhaps a rare drop from hades? different tier items could have varying rarity and stat boosts/perks.

 

[Topslime]

I have came to the conclusion, that overall GAMEPLAY of prisons is relatively boring. I think Mining Level should mean something and people should be rewarded getting a mining level, i can see a permanent sell booster or an increase in fortune.

Hades needs a rework or loot table adjustment. No one wants to hit a lava golem 22 times and get potatoes.

I think /milestones could fix these issues. Kill 10k hades mobs could make you more powerful. Mine 5 million blocks could get additional fortune or sell multi.

In reality, the counterpoint is "it's suppose to be a grind" or "just mine blocks" is silly. Because we don't have to follow the same steps as other prison server.

SVA's are in a weird spot. Because they sre unbalanced but its not fair to the players the own the best overpowered weapons

 

[Kuduva]

Hi, haven’t really played reset so I’m not really the perfect player to give input on, but from a perspective of last season, there were definitely free to play players that were rich and grinded to elite themselves, but most of these people have played for multiple seasons and have spent quite a lot of time AFK or actively mining. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, but the appeal of buying became much more apparent when trying to quickly finish something, or in a lot of players case, RNG. If you didn’t get bold, say 20 keys in, people would panic buy in hopes of getting it. I totally believe the game is playable without spending a dollar, as it’s been done, but even the difference from a non rank to VIP is incredible.

 

[FadingGeneral]

I agree that SVA items are a big problem on Olympus. There are many items with enchant levels and combinations that all players can't get from just playing the game. Instead, they have to resort to buying/trading with other players who have these items, just to get on a fairer playing field.

In the area of mining, this makes it so that players are at a disadvantage for a long time until they save up enough to buy a special pickaxe. However, since pickaxes with a fortune level greater than 25 only come from monthly crates, they are always in high demand so it may be impossible at times to even get one, and players may have to wait until the next monthly crate comes out to have a chance to purchase one. Even when a player is able to purchase an SVA pickaxe, they will in most cases never be able to catch up to the others who had them from the start because so much time would've passed in the season. I think this could be solved by what Topslime said above, where mining level or some other stat related to mining could be used to give access to buying a fortune level higher than 25 on your own pickaxe, or giving an item that could apply fortune levels past 25 once used on a fortune 25 pickaxe (maybe a new scroll)? This change could also appeal to those with SVA pickaxes where the fortune level they have is 25 or 30, so if you have a favourite pickaxe but it only has a fortune level of 25 you could still use it and not feel at a disadvantage if you could eventually upgrade the fortune level on it to 35.

In the area of PvP combat, SVA weapons and armor pieces/sets make it that players are disadvantaged until they get the same or similar items. As SSM_GOD has said at the start of this thread, SVA weapons such as swords have enchantment levels that can't be matched by tedious grinding on the gamemode, such as obtaining the Ancient Sword or Kronos' Sword. It may be possible that the Infernal Sword drop from Nether Dragons could come close to the enchantment levels SVA swords have, but I'm unsure of that as I've never seen it dropped and the stats that it has. However, looking at the trend of items introduced like the new Kronos Sword added this season, I'm going to assume it doesn't even come close to SVA swords and instead has stats similar to other non-crate obtainable swords. For bows, the best bow you can get through grinding is Apollos Golden Bow, and that's it. You get the bow as a rebirth reward, but unlike swords there are no available shops to buy other bows. For axes, I believe the Bone Axe is the best you could get, and again that is the only good one available with no others present in shops. To fix these problems other unique bows and swords need to be added to shops, and just as in the case of pickaxes stated earlier there needs to be a way that all players can increase the levels of enchantments on these weapons.

Now onto SVA armor. Some SVA armor has such a big advantage that I don't think it should have ever been created. In the current status of PvP combat in the Hades Underworld, you can die through being knocked off into the void or losing all of your health. In the case of the void, no armor you have would matter since the void would always kill you unless you pull some shenanigans. However, in the case of dying to losing all of your health, someone wearing SVA armor with the Unbreakable attribute will beat anyone wearing any breakable armor currently in the game. This is the case because of the Implants custom enchantment, which is one of the easiest to get due to being apart of the common tier, and providing a very strong benefit of giving the wearer Saturation and Regeneration buffs. Due to these 2 reasons everyone who will put in some effort to gather gear to fight other players will wear armor with Implants, making the sole deciding factor in combat as to who will lose all of their health first is who's armor will break first. To lower the advantage of SVA armor, especially those pieces that have the Unbreakable attribute, I believe what should happen is that the Implants custom enchantment must be nerfed, so that it doesn't make armor durability a large deciding factor of a fight. The Unbreakable attribute should be present as a convenience of not having to constantly repair items, just like for pickaxes and swords, instead of being the main reason an item is strong.

 

[Krautrocks]

I don’t know what you guys are talking about this server is not pay to win.
You don’t have pay to win given the fact that if this server was 100% not
pay to win there are always people with money paying other to do work for
them. Ex. I pay 20-30 people 2 cubits”dollars on paypal” to do work on my
island. This example has nothing to do with this server, but as a community.
If anything it is selfish people wanting to get free money not having to pay this
server. If those people had there way this server would not exist anymore.

 

[SSM_GOD]

I think that the whole argument of P2W boils down to the very important argument of a server making profit; do you think it is reasonable for Manacube to make money, and in the process, players get benefits?

I think it's fair. I air more towards the side of buying cosmetics rather than items, but there is a need, at least at times, to provide greater benefits. Which is why I think the game mode should be more 'pay to enhance' or 'pay to make it easier'. Some things like unbreakable armor or items that automate farming should be made possible to compete against without irl money or grinding cubits for a year.

But instead of these items being obtained from p2w crates, you would grind for them. It could maybe be something purchasable from kilton or trials. Even perhaps a rare drop from hades? different tier items could have varying rarity and stat boosts/perks.

great idea for a /milestones reward!
I've been trying to draft some ideas for rewards for milestones for a while, but its hard lol

It may be possible that the Infernal Sword drop from Nether Dragons could come close to the enchantment levels SVA swords have, but I'm unsure of that as I've never seen it dropped and the stats that it has. However, looking at the trend of items introduced like the new Kronos Sword added this season, I'm going to assume it doesn't even come close to SVA swords and instead has stats similar to other non-crate obtainable swords.

https://manacube.wiki/en/olympus/items
sharp 4 and unbreaking 4 :[

 

[SSM_GOD]

I don’t know what you guys are talking about this server is not pay to win.
You don’t have pay to win given the fact that if this server was 100% not
pay to win there are always people with money paying other to do work for
them. Ex. I pay 20-30 people 2 cubits”dollars on paypal” to do work on my
island. This example has nothing to do with this server, but as a community.
If anything it is selfish people wanting to get free money not having to pay this
server. If those people had there way this server would not exist anymore.

honestly have no clue what youre saying. can you please explain further?
i explained how its not pay to win but that some people might see it as that and then gave solutions to fix it
as i said, im one of the top players on olympus without spending much money so obviously its not strictly p2w
irl deals are not allowed at all, so you best not be paying people paypal money
most players who stick around more than like, 3 months, end up donating. so i dont see how playing a game is selfish

 

[oWinqs]

I think it's fair. I air more towards the side of buying cosmetics rather than items, but there is a need, at least at times, to provide greater benefits. Which is why I think the game mode should be more 'pay to enhance' or 'pay to make it easier'. Some things like unbreakable armor or items that automate farming should be made possible to compete against without irl money or grinding cubits for a year.


great idea for a /milestones reward!
I've been trying to draft some ideas for rewards for milestones for a while, but its hard lol


https://manacube.wiki/en/olympus/items
sharp 4 and unbreaking 4 :[

I agree with the 'pay to enhance' and 'pay to make easier', except for the fact that technically everything you can buy will make your life easier and enhance it on the server, lol. Looking at the shop, I have no problem with ranks, keys, cubits, or titles. The ones I'm considering are the kits and the black market. Now, I am biased here, since I have spent over 200$ on the server, so my opinion doesn't really matter here; but I personally don't find a problem with those. I can see how its unfair for F2P players, but again, it just boils down to the argument of server profit and everything else I mentioned. Good thread!

 

[Cookie Kat]

I still believe that the server can be P2W in a sense- yes you can basically get any OP item through trading with other players... but the thing is, some of the best items such as freedom axes or lucky armour go for large amounts of cubits- I’ve seen people saying those items alone are worth hundreds of cubits, and to sell them for any less would be insane. No new player who is free to play would be able to get those cubits quickly unless they got lucky and somehow got a large sum of cubits. Plus, these items are pretty rare, not many people want to sell them and for good reason. So even if a free to play player did have the cubit balance to pay for the items, it might just not be physically possible due to no one selling.

 

[oWinqs]

I still believe that the server can be P2W in a sense- yes you can basically get any OP item through trading with other players... but the thing is, some of the best items such as freedom axes or lucky armour go for large amounts of cubits- I’ve seen people saying those items alone are worth hundreds of cubits, and to sell them for any less would be insane. No new player who is free to play would be able to get those cubits quickly unless they got lucky and somehow got a large sum of cubits. Plus, these items are pretty rare, not many people want to sell them and for good reason. So even if a free to play player did have the cubit balance to pay for the items, it might just not be physically possible due to no one selling.

SVA's are in an interesting place; they fetch such a high price that only the 1% of the 1% hold on to them. There is a group of around 5 SB players that has over 100 SVA's each. This is to be expected, but the point is, high-value items are always going to flow straight to the top of the totem pole. Even if you couldn't buy an item, it would always end up in the richest player's hands. This is what makes game modes like this so interesting! Either way, it's something to think about!

 

[Topslime]

SVA's are in an interesting place; they fetch such a high price that only the 1% of the 1% hold on to them. There is a group of around 5 SB players that has over 100 SVA's each. This is to be expected, but the point is, high-value items are always going to flow straight to the top of the totem pole. Even if you couldn't buy an item, it would always end up in the richest player's hands. This is what makes game modes like this so interesting! Either way, it's something to think about!

Thats the power struggle if they balance the game by adding new armor or weapons in kilton or whatever method they choose. The "high value items" will lose value. Trust me no one is holding a freedom axe because it's old af. They hold it because it's overpowered.

So in order to balance servers, dacon would have to kill old sva's or keep releasing shitty ones, until the old SVA's fizzle out.

Thats why I suggested people should be able to grind to make their pick better. So in theory a F2P player that grinds could have an equal or better pick than a player that doesn't mine and still has a fortune 30+ pick.

 

[oWinqs]

Thats the power struggle if they balance the game by adding new armor or weapons in kilton or whatever method they choose. The "high value items" will lose value. Trust me no one is holding a freedom axe because it's old af. They hold it because it's overpowered.

So in order to balance servers, dacon would have to kill old sva's or keep releasing shitty ones, until the old SVA's fizzle out.

Thats why I suggested people should be able to grind to make their pick better. So in theory a F2P player that grinds could have an equal or better pick than a player that doesn't mine and still has a fortune 30+ pick.

I do think that would be a way of balancing it; but those upgraded items would still be removed after a season reset; as you know, that's also what makes SVA's special. It's a tough situation either way.