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No flood etc., reason for this petition is more than obvious. (For dummies: Basil, Arcade)
A petition to remove all recipes from Hall Of Heroes.
I don't support removing all recipes from HoH, but I could get behind removing a lot (at least half) of them.
so apperently its not hard enough for you? i can see alot of rage quiting if they did this
I really think we should severely limit the HOH, because Basil has become outright useless except for the Boss token weapon recipes now. However, I don't think completely getting rid of it is the right way.
I think the main problem is that the HOH offers the same service as Basil without walking through one Stratum, hoping for the random Number Goddess to favour you and overall drawbacks. However, they shouldn't charge energy for the service as energy already is the single most valueable ressource.
I guess the best option for everyone would be to keep the hall of heroes, but make the products there MASSIVELY overpriced. Impatient richmen/women can get their stuff there, and adventurers are rewarded by much cheaper prices. Not only that, but selling recipes on the auction house would finally start making sense again, too. HOH would be much less practical to use, finally allowing alternatives to be profitable.
+0.5
Not removal of all recipes, but removal of non-basic recipes. I think Luguiru mentioned something like this in his thread of many posts, but I can't figure out how to link to one particular comment in a thread. :U
Something along the lines of selling only one line for each item - example would be giving all 2*-4* demo recipes, but only the Bombastic 5* recipes, and making all 2-4* elemental defence recipes available, but only allowing the Grey Feather 5* recipes to be bought at the HoH. Both Acheron and Combuster could be allowed, since they're different damage types, but only one of Skolver and Vog should be available there (probably Skolver, given it's in keeping with the defences of the rest of the line).
@Aotr: The game has been made easy enough as it is, what with the Retrode and Wolver nerfing amongst others. This would give more of a reason for people to go down into Clockworks again, and would also help the recipe market.
How about only basic recipes AND raised price? Otherwise all 2*-4* armor still would easily be available and alot of weapons, too. Common gear can be bought there, but it's cheaper at Basil, and most specialized gear is limited to Basil only. It just doesn't feel right to me that common equipment+all T2-armor still can be bought in the HOH without any consequences. The higher price at the very least would encourage venturing into the clockworks for it.
And to Aotr: I think you aren't really understanding the SK-community here. The game used to be extremely Nintendo Hard, with every enemy about as nasty as devilites(well, not every, but if alpha wolvers were feared shieldbreakers with their targetted bites, you know what kind of ride it was). Of course, i couldn't witness it: I got in not too long ago. However, even I have to admit that the game sure would be even more fun if some enemys would just be a bit more challenging. What I want to say is: True Knights want the game hardcore. Or at least harder than it currently is. If people want it easy, they are in for the wrong game.
This would promote regular clockworks runs, which I do, and currently are under-rewarding. So +1.
I remember doing that. It basically listed taking out a little over half all the recipes or something leaving only one or two of each weapon mechanic, like taking out Vog Cub line but leaving Skolver. Time to dig around my bookmarks and inevitably use the horribly derp search.
Right click the number on the top right corner of a post, copy link address, use that for the link.
Why dont you just leave whatever the merchant knigths are wearing and remove the rest?
@Luguiru: Thank you. For some reason I never realised those darn things got linked, I thought the comment number input was just meant to be the same number you got on the page. /fail (Err, also, you missed out Bombastic on that list.)
@Little-Juances: Then you would not be able to purchase any Brandish or Flourish line recipes from HoH - oh wait I see what you did there.
Solids.
Knew I forgot something.
Bombastic would be on the retained/kept list.
+1. All the fun of reaching basil has been stripped completely from the game and brought him to uselesness. There's honestly no reason to have every recipe in the HoH; we did fine without it and they're just randomly throwing all of the recipes at players for no real reason or purpose. It's also part f the reason why the CW has become so dead; no one runs Basil any more because they can get absolutely any recipe they need.
Wouldn't hurt having access to some of the recipes in the HoH, some of the basic ones and maybe an unusual one or two, who knows...but access to every single recipe (short of boss recipes) is just absolute overkill.
As I see it, HoH should just sell "basic" weapons and armor. So I'd be down with tossing out most armors - leaving just Cobalt, Jelly, Skelly, and Magic lines (but not Chaos Cloak and Divine Mantle) - and most status-inflicting or otherwise "exotic" weapons .
The way that the majority of the game has just been stuffed in it's own secluded area of the game makes the game feel so painfully small.
"This is the vast majority of the stuff in game, altogether it amounts to 9 people."
Viewing from 2* HoH as a newbie might give the impression of only having 9 sets.
Whilst during Basils prime, he was as mysterious as the clockworks with his stock, we'd be left to wonder what else there is and let curiosity drive us.
At least make the 1 star recipes only aviliable FROM mission rewards
EDIT: Typo
what you want us to take out the damn recipes to make more profit on your recipe sells? HEEELL no
second of all basil NEVER has the recipes anyone wants.. basil's evil D:
Actually the recipe market has gone up since the release of the HoH, meaning stupid people are spending more on recipes than ever before. Basil not having what you want is hlaf the fun; it's exciting, a mission, a hunt, a challenge. When you do runs for other things and reach Basil, you used to get excited to check it to see if he had anything you might want. Now there's no point even looking.
Hell, it's like any game out there; finding the items you want takes time and searching, you can never just pick "hey, I'll have that sword". Until now. Now, you can literally pick and choose the final gear and weapons of the game at no time, effort or real cost.
Leave the recipes there and makes them 60% more expensive, so people can make money off of recipe runs again.
^ that's an alternative I could get down with if they refuse to remove them completely. Leaves them there as an option if you desperately want them now w/o spending any time while introducing a small crown sink, and still leaves Basil open to farming for most players.
I understand making the clockworks more popular, but I already like them because they're more interesting. And you shouldn't punish people who want good gear (while rewarding hoarders)
I don't understand why people ever got mad at recipe resellers in the first place. People are doing you a service and making your recipe-shopping convenient.
"I already like them because they're more interesting"
You speak from a terribly minor point of view. I know very few people who used the CW until this event to search for PK.
Punishing people who want good gear? If they don't want to get "punished" they can very well run Basil themselves.
Honestly I think the HoH is very free market restrictive with respect to recipes, and I love the free market aspect in this game.
~Sev
...and that people who started playing after the Missions update don't know what it was like before, and that omg the missions patch was eight months ago.
Time flies :P
My contribution:
I. Armor
-Have HoH only carry defense-focused lines (Jelly, Skelly, Magic)
-Have only normal variants (no URJP/UFSC sets obviously, no chaos cowl/divine veil)
II. Weapons
-1 fast sword, medium sword, and slow sword, all normal dmg: troika (Suda line), Calibur, Cutter (WHB line)
-1 2-shot gun, 1 3-shot gun, normal dmg: Magnus (Iron Slug line), Blaster
-Blast bomb (Nitro line), Shard Bomb
(And no boss stuff, of course).
Want any of the other lines, haze bombs, alchemers, flourishes? I hear Basil has been lonely...
Im truly baffled by the profound displays of craziness on this thread. So everybody ( at least 60%) is basically saying to kill the HoH off and destroy progress made toward a better game. I am going to tell you right now this idea is crap. A main complaint before was people had to either grind for days jusf to get the more rare recipes like knight blades and even skolver armors. We had a choice of either wasting you're energy or ponying up and paying the middleman who would want 5k more than Basil ( sometimes more). This is not a good idea and not the way to move Foward. We shouldn't make excuses why the arcade is empty, its empty because of unfulfilled ideas. Everyone would like to go to the arcade, but the truth of the matter is that you waste to much of you're energy and get less playtime and a CRAPPY payout on top of that. We should directly fix the arcade not use tactics to force people into the arcade like a dictator.
I vote only Kive loses all recipe access outside of Basil through the Arcade, including through other players.
So you're trying to keep the Arcade dead.
I've almost never seen, except in 5* recipes, the recipe price hiked 5k+ over Basil's price. 5* recipes are already 30k, 5K really isn't a huge amount relatively.
It's a bonus payout for venturing in the Arcade.
"Not the way to move Forward."
*cough*obamapolicies*cough*
~Sev
Removing certain lines from the HoH is the best idea here- new people still have 'free' recipes, but can't get almost everything like right now. I'd also remove the specific lines from the Supply Depot and only their 4/5* variations from mission lobby Basils as well.
+Improves player to player interaction
+Gives more incentive to play in the arcade
+Small crown sink due to AH fees
-People will only play the arcade for Basil
-Based on luck if you don't buy from others
So, making upgrading your equipment a longer and more tedious process is to... get people back into the Arcade?
You need to tempt players to the Arcade, not force them there.
Oh, and if you didn't realise, I'm against it.
In giving them a reason to go to the Arcade, you also give them a reason to stop playing. You make making progress in this game a much longer process.
If, like many people here suggest, the first recipes (Maybe up to 2* or even 3*) will be available in HoH.
If you've got the CE to make 4* or 5* gear, chances are a couple thousand crown price-hike, or the initiative to venture and find the stuff yourself, isn't a huge problem.
Someone said on these very forums before: 'I think "streamlining" was tossed around too much in OOO's office. I mean not everything has to be streamlined'. HoH totally obliterated the market with the tiny exception of boss recipes. I'd say have it only take up half, or less than half, of the recipes in the game. So you get both benefits.
So, no, I don't believe it will "make making progress in this game a much longer process"...at all. I think that statement is blown out of proportion.
@Draycos:
Well, really now Draycos, did anyone run anything besides Bosses and Basil when the Arcade was the only thing around?
~Sev
I was referring to complete removal, and making it progression based purely on luck that what you're after from Basil.
In doing so, you make upgrading more tedious. From what you said to Draycos, you also don't make the Arcade more attractive. You make Basil more attractive. People won't run the entire clockworks, they'll do Basil runs; which are already done to an extent.
Yes, remove some lines from HoH, but removing all of them is a bad move.
It's bad enough that some gear is only accessible via a SL, but having to run a chunk of any of the tiers for the sake of every recipe is just.. it just seems ludicrous to me.
My dear friend, there were times when the HOH never existed, and forced people to either walk into the clockworks to get their recipe or go to the auction house and buy the stuff themself. Latter was more expensive, but also more convenient: Like an actual service fee! Was it more complicated than just walking into the hall to buy yourself dat recipe? Most likely, given that your recipes are only a few button-clicks away from you, with no price-drawbacks whatsoever. Let's phrase this differently: Was it fair? You bet it was, because while getting the recipe yourself was a luck-based mission, knights helped each other with the auction house. You got your recipe, they made profit. Fair trade to me. Didn't matter if you played millions of times through a gate, just to be greeted by Basil with a trollface, saying "Your recipe is in another castle, sucker!", because everyone played to him millions of times, and some resell the other recipes they found there. As I said, you payed more for it, but given the fact that people went into the clockworks themself, payed with their own money and essentially are your delivery service, that was excusable. Plus, being recipe merchant was a great way to earn money back then.
I'd even go as far as that we could technically remove the HOH altogether and there would be no consequences whatsoever. In fact, it would only reintroduce a profitable form of trade again, and the game stops shoving the recipes down your throat. Also, the arcade would be used for something again. Sure, most people would probably only play the first stratum, but at least the arcade stops being COMPLETELY useless.
The only real reason we should and probably have to keep the hall is because people like you like it the comfortable, boring way. Where you can get all recipes without any effort dirtcheap.
I love how the player-driven economy works in this game, and that's why I'd rather make the hall of heroes as inferior to Basil as possible, encouraging own ventures, player-trades and all in all, go the hard way. That's what Basil is, after all: The hard way. Only that in this game, we get loopholes and backdoors everywhere with no drawback whatsoever. We can use the mission system to get to the boss stratum infinite times, always with the same high payout. You can learn using certain weapons, or just wolver-avenger your way through the whole game. You can craft weapons so damn easily because materials are cheap as dirt. And, of course, you can just run to the HOH to get you the newest gear-recipes without getting extra-charge for service or at least have some sort of disadvantage encouraging own errands.
@Severage
I know that, which is why I put that minus there in the first place. People will play the Arcade, but besides Basil, it'll be virtually the same as before except with some random levels thrown at you before you can get your recipes. While there will be more level variation, it'll still be monotonous; you'd essentially be grinding again, just with a slightly random level lineup with variations of only a handful of level types.
It's a move in the right direction, but there has to be something more. More level types, reasonably equalized payouts, perhaps even unique levels left out of missions...
I love that a lot of older, experienced players are all voting heavily for this idea, and restoring Arcade usage, while you have newer, impatient players insisting that easy, free access to everything in the entire damn game is the only way it'll be fun.
Imagine that...a game where you have to put time/work/effort into finding the best gear, and getting everything you want. A game where absolutely everything isn't given freely to you. Hell, we all did it before the HoH and now feel that it was better off. People just mooching from the HoH who've never experienced the game w/o it really shouldn't be allowed an opinion here.
Should have clarified; I'm not saying all new players are addicted to the easy route, just taht the players who insist that the game would suck w/o HoH seem to be exclusively players who never played before HoH was introduced and seem to just be looking for an easy ride to the finish. I'm reminded of that troll-fail who suggested having 5k mist and 5me/min regen...
Fore-note: Recommend you read the few last paragraphs. They're the most important.
Quick analogy: Vegetables.
You could go out, buy a farm, buy some seeds, grow your own veggies, pick them, and then proceed to eat them.
Or, you go just nip down to the supermarket, skip the hard bit, and eat away.
______
Veggies aside (I can't believe I just said that), forcing the players into a process that is longer (you can't refute that, as, quite frankly, it is) is rather strange. The usefulness of Basil is up to the player. The hard route still, quite happily, is possible. The fact there exists an easier option doesn't make it a worse option.
Regardless, you seem to see buying the recipe from HoH instead of Basil as "unrewarding".. why the heck is it? You still had to complete the missions to get that HoH open. You still had to get the crowns to buy the recipe. You still had to get the crowns and CE to craft whatever the heck it is you're crafting. The only bit you don't do is travelling through a few floors to reach a stranger, namely Basil. Getting stuff from HoH, in itself, is no "easy" task; it's just easier.
just taht the players who insist that the game would suck w/o HoH
Assuming you're referring to me, I never said the game would suck. I said the progression curve would change, which casual players are likely to be against. I will repeat, casual players. Not the ones that are happy to grind the crap out of the game.
May not be the best comparison, but you see my point. People don't like having everything thrown at them. Sometimes a bit less comfort is more comfort.
I see it, very loosely. Here I was thinking technological progression was intended to make tasks "easier" for people. I guess humanity has gone wrong there, huh?
Give me one reason to why arcade isn't useless.
You've answered this yourself, so there's no point in me repeating.
You can earn money as casual player. Money equals clockwork venturing. Clockwork venturing equals crossroads. Conclusion: Even casual players get into the crossroads.
Obviously. But I doubt casual players are gonna be over-the-moon about having to grind Basil just to get the next step in their gear set up.
You don't want to put effort into a game? Don't play it.
People do have lives outside of an online game, you know... Telling people who won't dedicate their lives to a game to effectively "do it, or get out", shows you have no place in the gaming industry.
And complicating recipe-getting just a little bit does not overdo it. it just makes recipe-getting feel a little more rewarding. Getting a recipe once was a thing to be happy about: It meant progress. Now it's just a trip to a stupid hallway.
You're failing to see my point. You're not promoting a "feel good about myself" thing. You're promoting repetition in order to advance.
This, quite simply, discourages casual players.
it's a perfect valid way to solve the problem.
You're not really solving anything. If the HoH continued to exist, but with inflated prices; that doesn't mean people will do Basil runs more often. It means that they can one of two things: grind Basil even more, or grind high payout missions, like FSC, more often. If the latter happened, what would you do then? Get rid of high payouts on missions?
Effectively, your strategy to bring life to the Arcade is not to make it more attractive, it's to make people more reliant on it.
Which is kind of like, everyone drives a car, so you stop giving them fuel, so everyone is forced to walk.
The best solution is to not strip SK of everything that discourages use of the Arcade. It's to give the Arcade an edge. Currently, that's boss-token gear. Some other ideas is to make materials/minerals unavailable in missions, so it's either the AH or the Arcade. Add additional "special" recipes only available to Basil. Whatever.
Just don't force the Arcade onto players if they either don't need it, or don't want it.
I played the game LONG before HOH existed, and I still say it was a great improvement.
Though clockworks-exclusive levels would be nice.
Maybe instead of making HOH MORE costly, how about giving basil recipes a discount, at least for recipes that also appear in HOH?
@masterof kings wow that was FANTASTIC I was getting at the same thing. You have said it in a better easier too understand way. I didnt have the time to write something of that polish at the minute. I highly reccomend you guys reading his post.
@luguiru Wow I used to look up to you. You have changed alot, into someone who doesn't look at things from a neutral point of view. It males me truly sad that I actually made some pretty good points on my post and instead of talking intelligently like Severage, you vote that I dont get recipes period. You have changed for the worse #exposed
@Severage Im not saying that we should keep the arcade dead, far from it. Im saying you should make people want to go to the arcade instead of forcing them just to get a recipe. Look at the dark harvest people had the option to do the mission or go to the arcade for candy. People did the mission. Why? Because it made more sense gave you candy faster and saved time and energy. Three rings patched the exploit and now people have to pretty much go to the arcade for candy. Still not many people are going into the arcade, most just do the mission and get a vana run in. The arcade has to be appealing for people to want to go. I cant make enough cr off of an arcade run to get some more ce in this tough ecconomy.
Notice: this was typed on my phone a few obvious things I need to clean up on my post when I get onto a desktop.
You make a good point when you say that the Arcade should be more appealing instead of a necessity, rather than forcing someone to go there.
My point is, however, that the recipe re-selling is appealing, and is not forcing anyone to do anything. Newbies can go right to the HoH for recipes up to 2*, or maybe 3*, and only the higher recipes would be Basil-only (including boss recipes).
Why? Because instead of grinding Vanaduke's Mission, maybe at least people would go to the Arcade for Vanaduke, getting in Basil simultaneously. As I have said before, I don't think a small price-hike (like adding 5K for a 30K recipe) is going to matter for people who need 4* and higher recipes.
So, for the people who are "forced", as you term it, to go to the Arcade, would only be "forced" to do T3 Basil. At that point, they can get a Vanaduke run in at the same time, including picking up recipes to resell themselves!
Yes, I think it makes the Arcade more appealing.
~Sev
I remember you claiming to be the necro agency and calling yourself a troll. Kive.
Recipes are a crown sink. Crown sinks lower CE:Cr prices on the player market so energy is cheaper to buy with crowns. Missions grant easy access to high crown payouts which drives the price up. Crowns are as infinitely available as players are willing to grind them while CE is not so steadily purchased.
*contribution to the topic and not yelling at others*
i feel that they should get rid of the cobalt stuff in the HOH. you get it FOR FREE. and you can't sell them, so why whould you buy another recipe that you ALSO CAN'T SELL. that is all.
You can't bring IRL work analogies into a game; it is not a fair comparison. Sure, why buy a farm, plant the seeds when you could go to the supermarket?
But why spend 4 discs levelling up and chasing Sepiroth across the world when you could skip to disc 4 and just kill him?
Why raid dungeons over and over hunting for the best drops when you could just hack and get them?
Why try and get achievements on xbox when you could just pay someone to do it for you?
Why do the missions trying to get 45k prestige when you could just PM a GM and ask him to knock up your prestige to 45k for you?
The whole point of a game is to work at something and earn something. That's what makes it fun, what makes it feel earnt, what makes it worth it, what brings the excitement in. When you just have everything in the game handed to you on a silver platter it takes all the fun and excitement out of it. There's no urge or drive to play the game becasue you just feel "meh, can just go get it whenever I damn well please". So why bother? Before HoH, the urge was to do FSC to farm money, then to farm Basil to get recipes for yourself or to resell, then use all that money to craft, then farm faster/play LD. Now, all you need to do is spam KoA to get some money, hit the HoH, buy eveyrthing you need aaaaaaand sit on the forums complaining 24/7 that there's no new updates and you've done everything in the game.
I mean, is it any coincidence that the number of tantrum threads has gone up remarkeably since then? Everyone's maxing out and reaching end-game a hell of a lot faster than before because of spammable KoA and instant HoH recipes; no one has any urge to actually "play" the game as much as just "finish" it.
0.o Missions were supposed to be a way of introducing players to the game, right?
What if missions were limited to being completed a set number of times?
Also, about the HoH and it currently being necessary for star certification, I agree that limiting recipe buying from there would lead to a more vibrant and chaotic economy in recipe trade, and I also think it'd encourage more players to jump down the arcade to hunt for recipes. I do so myself to get boss gear recipes for my friends and as a change of scenery from cr farming JK and RT.
I started the game in mid-august and have no intention of finding an end-game. The community is just silly, and I luff it. 'wish I played earlier... I must admit, I've learned the game more from other players than I have from the wiki or the talky missions.
So! Even though I know I'm only contributing to this deviation from an actual petition.... What if you can only buy a limited number of recipes from the HoH? Then it'd be locked after you purchase your recipes and attain your certification! This is obviously not the best suggestion, but why not?
For my money, having every single recipe available only through random Basil listings was an absolutely TERRIBLE design element. The main path of progression through this game, and indeed the basic mechanic the game is built around, is acquiring and upgrading a variety of weapons and armor. Before the HoH, that progression was randomly and arbitrarily limited by what weapons you happened to stumble across in a particular meeting with Basil. You were either forced into just going with what Basil managed to give you, waiting for what could take weeks' worth of runs to find that one recipe you needed, or paying a substantial mark-up on a market that shouldn't even really exist in the first place. There was literally a big chunk of the game that was hidden behind a wall that didn't need to be there. The HoH allows for people to better plan out how they want to progress, and to get a clearer picture of how different sets work together without needing to go diving through the wiki.
Before anyone says anything, I started playing well before the HoH existed. And do you know what that did for me? I wound up going solely with a Cobalt set, because it was the only set of recipes that was always available for me to buy, and I didn't yet understand why I should be looking all over the place for other lines to craft. It wasn't until I hit 4-star or so that I realized I should have gone with better options, and by that point, I just went ahead and got to 5-star anyway to progress through the then-new missions system. (My Azure Guardian set is still my only 5-star armor, though that's a whole other issue.) If the HoH had existed in the first place, I would have tried out newer sets much sooner than I did, and my overall progression would have involved a lot less wall-banging.
Now, I could kind of see how restricting the HoH to some of the more basic sets/weapons of each type, and leaving some of the more esoteric choices to Basil, could possibly work. But even then, I'd find it more frustrating than anything else. It was bad enough not being able to find a Twisted Snarble Barb recipe for several months, and then finally breaking down and overpaying for it on the AH. I don't want to do that any more than I already have.
Seriously, where is everyone getting "substantial/huge/massive markup"?
10k Basil - 12k AH
25k Basil - 30k AH
The AH price actually made it CHEAPER to buy off of other players, than the equivelant value of time/ele costs.
@darkbrady You're metaphors aren't hitting their marks. If you look at this thread almost everyone is either talking about $$$ or reviving the clockworks. Also GMs cannot bump up you're prestige, and you would be paying someone big money to rack up that gamerscore for you, and most 4 or 2 disc games make you play the first disc because you wouldnt understand whats happening.
@Luguiru I have never said that I was not a troll or part of the SNK. I was merely pointing out how you changed from a wise person to someone who cant even see his own feet ( metaphorically speaking). Also its in all my post, this wont solve the main problem and ironically you admited it yourself. Even if we were to put recipes basil only the KoA mission is still there, people can still grind, and energy is still high. I admit I like to joke and goof around on the forums but when it gets to a serious topic like this I need to make sure people are thinking this through.
@Severage I like how you come at this topic with a clear mind I might not agree with your thinking but at least it's well said.If we were to cut all HoH recipes besides 3s star and below were really just crapping on the 4star people who don't have acces to King of Ashes yet ( since its 5* only). The arcade is now even more empty and they have to try and find the recipe with the arcades horrible payout and their energy being burnt faster (less playtime). This will only benefit thos greedy people at the top who want more revenue by exploiting the demand. I know this far to well , before I would exploit the market. If you buy the rarer less in demand recipes that means less competition ( higher price you can sell for), this worked really well for series like khorovod and plate. I saw a khorovod recipe sell for 17k cr and that was pretty normal for that series. I sold 3*plate mails & helms for 10k cr each. Trust me Severage there is a whole blackmarket on recipes, the only person that losses is the consumer.
The point was that everyone here against this is relying on the choice of "why should we have to work harder for end-game content when we have easy access to it?" which is against the very concept and atmosphere of games. In MMOs especially, the whole point is having to put time and effort into hunting your desired gear and grinding levels, whereas the HoH rips that away and offers you all the end-game content without effort, defeating the spirit of any MMO.
Y'know, there are a lot of people who feel like the "spirit of MMOs," particularly grinding, is a pretty godawful way to play games. One of the things I really liked about SK back when CE prices were saner was that there was a definite sense of progression...even a random Clockworks run could net you enough crowns to buy 100 CE, and it wasn't long before you were crafting your way up the ladder. The missions system added a different (though equally fun) sense of progression, but the unintended side-effect of infinitely-loopable boss missions was the price spike that destroyed equipment progression, and pretty much required the sort of mindless repetitive grinding that I so despise. I haven't traded for CE for months now, simply because I refuse to pay those prices, so I'm pretty much spinning my in-game wheels at this point.
I don't think anyone in here who supports the HoH is against "hard content" in general; I'm not, anyway. However, I do think that there are certain elements of an overall game design that should be difficult, and there are others that should definitely NOT be. In SK, the thing that should be difficult and require skill is combat. Enemies at a certain tier should be able to wreck you at first, until you gain the gear and skills needed to deal with them. Hell, I used to whine about T3 fiends, and they still kick my [bucket] when I solo, but at least I've become somewhat better at handling them. That's the part of the game where frustration is a good thing. The part that SHOULD NOT be frustrating is the simple act of purchasing recipes to advance your gear. There's just no reason for it...it's a game mechanic getting in the way of itself.
Look at virtually any other MMO out there; to get gear you have to kill bosses and hope for drops, or do quests and get the rewards. There's virtually no games where you can literally just pick and choose the gear you want and have it. You always have to go out of yur way to find it; that is an integral part of MMOs; it delays progress (again, as I said earlier; people get access to everything they could possibly want so easily, and within two days are whining that updates are too rare, they're finished, they're bored etc). Forcing the randomised recipes on Basil gave you:
Reason to travel CWs at all
Reason to do something other than Boss missions
A tool for merchanting
A delay for end-game gear
A "mini-quest" of sorts, for your guild and you to go through strat5 hunting for [recipes, either specific ones or not]
None of that applies any more. Without recipe farming (and repeatable KoA), there's virtually no reason to go to the arcade, either to break monotomy or otherwise. Merchants have lost what was once a huge part of sales, and not just big-time merchants either, but smaller players who generally didn't bother about merchanting, also had the opportunity to grab some rare recipes and make a small profit.
There's now absolutely no delay on end-game gear, allowing you to fast-track to the finish with everything you want, which is pretty unique (and awful)) to SK, amongst MMOs.
And farming boss token recipes now is just plum annoying, because the one you want is either there...or not. At least before, if you didn't find the recipe you were after, you might have come across another one you were thikin' about, or a rare one to sell. Now the rest of the recipes Basil has are just a slap in the face to those who used to actually enjoy going there.
I sure hope this is a joke.