[Neus]

Opinions are split, which is fine, it's more or less what I expected. It's not the type of thing I look for when I'm considering adding new support options, anyway. There are areas of crystal collection that could be improved outside of the support shop, which I am planning to look into.

Though, if I'm being honest, I don't appreciate shard gathering being framed as a 'purposeful inconvenience'. And I'm going to assume it wasn't your intention, Jam, but your post also comes off a touch rude.

Thank you for your opinions.

[Skullcatrons]

On grinding:

Thread 1: here  (since this thread we at least got extra mob spawns in the 1-60 dungeons and dark amplifier but that introduced problems of its own that I addressed in thread 2)
Thread 2: here

Shard
Thread 1: here (request for a crystal terminal upgrade to allow players to view their shard count per zone to make collecting them far easier, as they'll know which areas to look in)
Thread 2: here (request to allow players to toggle visibility of already gathered shards so party leaders can help party members who haven't gathered all shards)

I like this. It's better to have crystal upgrade tracker that tells you what shards you're missing in a zone rather than having to memorize them. 

I'd also like to point out that while purchasing Legend Inks and Shards hold no direct benefit, we still have an item that gives a direct[/ii] advantage over non paying players.

The Science Kit.

The dismantling the Science Kit provides is a direct advantage over free to play players, since normally you can only go to a very specific part of the map, only at specific hours to do so. Otherwise? You need the Science Kit.

If that's fine, I fail to see how purchasing Legend Inks and the Shards are such a massive, overwhelming advantage.
We could also simply just put "limitations" on both of them.

You can only use the Gain All Shards item if you have a character with all shards collected on the same key.
You can only purchase Legend Inks if you have already obtained every stat increasing Legend Extension upgrade.

Now you're not getting any stats by purchasing. Any better?

I also don't like this because it only encourages bad faith. We're deceiving ourselves into thinking that this is okay. Which you realize it's not really correct, because Professor Gremlin is available pretty much 24/7. You just have to go to him. Talk to him. Wiggle your brows at him, and call him cute names. This was the same case back on Great Six. Where you have to go to Law's End.

Sure, with enough roleplay development, and map requests. You could get some more item salvagers in other part of Korvara other than Professor Gremlin. He doesn't needs to be the only one.

But yeah. We have this restriction for few reasons: To encourage people to grind. Doing so, new players will get the help they accidentally receive because without those helps. They are going to get screwed over trying to do new game, struggle playing the game because they don't understand and die multiple time fighting 2-3 level 3-5 mobs because they don't have the capability to survive a fight. 

Sawrock is right.

We need grinds. So veteran players always end up having to play with new players.

[Frozen]

I also don't like this because it only encourages bad faith. We're deceiving ourselves into thinking that this is okay. Which you realize it's not really correct, because Professor Gremlin is available pretty much 24/7. You just have to go to him. Talk to him. Wiggle your brows at him, and call him cute names. This was the same case back on Great Six. Where you have to go to Law's End.

Actually, you never had to go to Law's End. Every other player house back in the day had a robot maid that you could break items down on. I only ever visited Law's End on any of my characters specifically for the quest involving that NPC you're talking about.

It was a lot more convenient to break items down in G6 than it is now, where you'd have to make the roundabout walk to the Badlands to find the NPC. If I had the Science Kit, I could just... not walk there and get my Raremetal instantly!

[Ham]

dev homie you've been on the internet for like over 2 decades now, and on byond specifically for atleast 22 years and 6 games plus a map editor in your backlog. if you think something as tame as that is rude if even a touch then idk what kinda criticism you choose to look at or acknowledge

[saikyogroove77]

[Trexmaster]

Opinions are split, which is fine, it's more or less what I expected. It's not the type of thing I look for when I'm considering adding new support options, anyway. There are areas of crystal collection that could be improved outside of the support shop, which I am planning to look into.

Though, if I'm being honest, I don't appreciate shard gathering being framed as a 'purposeful inconvenience'. And I'm going to assume it wasn't your intention, Jam, but your post also comes off a touch rude.

Thank you for your opinions.

What I meant was more adding this as a support shop feature as opposed to quality of life changes could be perceived as such, not the shard gathering itself. Thus my advocating for such changes over the initial proposal of a donation option.

I am glad shard gathering is being looked into though. Thank you.

[Slydria]

I think it'd be better to not offer these as a donation incentive and just provide options to make the gathering process more timely, such as:

- Uncollected shards producing ambient light in an area. I'll say from personal experience, the ones I've often missed were behind trees or rocks, or ones I just didn't catch during the darkest parts of night.
- A cheap Terminal Upgrade, whether it's a command or a given key item you can slap into your hotbar, that tells you if any shards are in the area and points you to the nearest one with a compass direction, if so.
- Perhaps a way to check in more detail where the shards are, like something that goes through all the areas and spits them all out in a list of messages like '(0/10) Shards Found in Telegrad Beach Cave' so you can easily tell where the remaining shards are.

[WaifuApple]

Ignoring the meme pile on, I agree with Slydria.

When these maps get dark they get REALLY dark, which making these things glow would help with (and it'd make them more magical feeling), and some stuff is hidden under rocks or trees which means unless you're searching under every rock and tree (which isn't the fun kind of exploration) you're relying on someone to tell you it's there most of the time. Honestly, for these kinds of hidden shards, having some kind of 'hint' nearby could make the search more engaging.

Having a way to tell how much is in the area and how much of that you've collected would be invaluable for narrowing a search down, and I think you should be able to check your shard count without having to haul yourself to a crystal.

Edit:
Alright, hear me out.

[Neus]

What I meant was more adding this as a support shop feature as opposed to quality of life changes could be perceived as such, not the shard gathering itself. Thus my advocating for such changes over the initial proposal of a donation option.

I am glad shard gathering is being looked into though. Thank you.

Thank you for clarifying. The way it was phrased made it read to me as accusatory, but if that's what you meant, then I better understand.

[Lolzytripd]

I'd still ultimately prefer some way to skip it on new characters, I'm sorry, its just too tedious to do it.

Even if its only available as an Nema upgrade, I'd prefer to only have to collect all shards one time per ckey at this point.