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Altering the use of Brink's trinkets.

4 replies [Last post]
Wed, 11/23/2011 - 16:36
Evess's picture
Evess

Currently it would seem Brink's trinkets have somewhat lost their usefulness as they are compared with the pvp trinkets. I have thought of a possible solution to their loss of use! I would suggest making them into accessories (all of them already have suitable names to be a variety of accessories) that, while the accessories themselves would have no stats, would replace the accessorized item's current UV (if any) with a corresponding UV to the item.

Example: Say I have a helm with low fire UV, and I equip it with Pure White Laurel - the item loses its low fire UV and gains a maximum poison UV and an image of a white laurel around the helm. The laurel would be replaceable with other accessories and the UV would stay, and if the helm had not been capable of receiving the type of accessory this would be, the UV would be gained without gaining the laurel around the head.

While this could prove to be a bad idea because you could not have the ideal triple UV on such an item (because this is a fixed UV, each would always give its assigned stat), it is still a good way of getting a solid grasp on your UV's.

The only problem I can see with it is perhaps making it too easy to obtain these good UV's that people might otherwise buy energy from OOO to roll for through Punch.

Thoughts? Reasons this is actually a bad idea? Do you like potatoes?

EDIT: New thought: Perhaps have the accessories bind to you so they couldn't be sold easily - you'd have to earn your own. Thoughts?

Wed, 11/23/2011 - 17:15
#1
Antistone's picture
Antistone
Thoughts

First off: even if this were implemented, I see no reason to remove the existing trinkets. The trinkets at least provide some additional equipment options, and a way to fill your trinket slots without consuming krogmo coins (directly or indirectly), and I don't see any reason that keeping them would be incompatible with your suggestion.

Secondly: billing these as accessories is unnecessary and confusing, especially if the UV can be applied to items that can't accept the accessory and remains when you replace the accessory. It requires new art assets, it hurts players who already have accessories that would be replaced, it encourages people to ask for other accessories to have mechanical benefits, and I don't see any upside.

So after stripping that away, what you are effectively suggesting (or should be suggesting) is that Brinks should sell UV tickets (in exchange for sparks) that reset an item's UVs to a predictable stat and power level, rather than random ones like Punch.

Phrased like that, I think it becomes evident that:

1. This is very unlikely to happen, for all the same reasons that buying non-random UVs is unlikely in general. Randomness heightens Skinner conditioning, allows the most powerful UVs to feel special and command insane prices while being only marginally better than the next-most-powerful, makes it easier for the devs to add new UVs or tweak probabilities behind the scenes, etc.

If Punch offered to just sell you exactly the UV you want at the same statistical cost as rolling randomly until you get it, players would balk, and would probably not buy either fixed OR random UVs. But because that cost is hidden, everyone sees a relatively small incremental cost with "some chance" of getting what they want, with predictable results.

2. This would need to be incredibly expensive to be balanced against Punch's current prices. An automatic maximum UV for 100 sparks is totally out of the question (especially considering that a 100-spark trinket only gives the approximate equivalent of a medium UV, and takes up an equip slot).

If you estimate a spark is worth ~150 crowns (roughly what you could get by buying rare crafting materials and selling them to other players), Punch's 1-UV ticket costs the equivalent of 133 sparks, has an average result that is probably medium at best, and doesn't let you choose what stat it's for. You could argue that the best uses of tokens aren't supposed to be tradeable and the true value is higher than that, but I think that even 100 sparks for a medium would almost certainly be too cheap; 100 sparks for a low might be vaguely reasonable.

3. This would tend to drive crystal energy prices up. If people are spending sparks instead of crowns to get their UVs, then the crowns will get spent on something else.

4. This would make selling random UVs to others less profitable. Adding alternate avenues for players to obtain them can only drive market prices down, which means less incentive for random rolling, which means fewer people spending crowns at Punch or energy on rage-crafting.

It's probably better than many proposals to let people buy predictable UVs, since it relies on a highly limited and non-tradeable currency, which allows them to retain more feeling of being "special" and interferes with other UV markets less than if you just charged crowns and/or energy for them. I wouldn't necessarily mind seeing it. But I think it's highly unlikely.

As for Brinks' current trinkets, if they're not good enough, they should just be buffed--regardless of whether Brinks starts offering anything else for sale or not.

Wed, 11/23/2011 - 17:34
#2
Evess's picture
Evess
Wonderful points!

Thank you for responding with so many good points! Thinking on it like that, I can't help but absolutely agree with you for most of your reasoning! I mostly came up with this idea because I was thinking about bringing relevance to the trinkets and thought of the (somewhat) new accessories and figured this could sort of coattail onto it, but I very much agree with your reasons as to why this wouldn't work. Thanks for the response!

So yep, I'd say that, unless someone has counterpoints that I haven't thought of, this thread is pretty much done haha

Wed, 11/23/2011 - 19:46
#3
Alpha-Stevo's picture
Alpha-Stevo
I think the whole Trinket

I think the whole Trinket accessories can still be salvaged into somethin' more aesthetic. I wouldn't mind wearin' a Royal jelly Band on me.

Thu, 11/24/2011 - 00:22
#4
Andrew-Wiggin's picture
Andrew-Wiggin
I like potatoes

That is all.

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