zOMG: Solution to Ring "Problem"

[Fallaciously Fabulous]

While in a thread yesterday about the potential of a ring trading system to prevent people being unable to play after salvaging their only attack ring, an idea dawned on me.

Their suggestion was as most are..."Make it possible to trade rings within the game so they stay soulbound, but people can get the rings they want." Those of us who know the way soulbinding works and the way people are sneaky will tell you that this will simply lead to people making "off the book" trades. Trade for the ring they want in game, but then completing a gold trade out of game to get the rings they want and give the other user their payment.

Now, here's my solution. Create a "Ring Pool."
The concept is simple, take the users out of the trading equation. Create a system to allow users to donate their unwanted rings to the "Ring Pool" and then let other users who are looking for a certain ring be given the chance to obtain it semi-randomly.

It would work this way. User approaches the NPC who monitors the "Barton Town Ring Pool" and the conversation will continue:
"Would you like to choose a ring?" Click Yes.
"Which type of ring would you like to receive?" Choose from one of ring types, Close Range Attack, Crowd Control, etc. This user selects Ranged Attack Ring.
"You reach your hand into the Ranged Attack Ring bucket and grab hold of a ring."
You have received a new Heavy Water Balloon Ring.

All rings would be CL 1 to prevent people using the pool to get rings to salvage for orbs. There would also be at least a 2 week time limit to prevent over use of the system. Also, there would be a quest in Barton Town to introduce you to the ring pool and its concept early in the game. Lastly, and this is where things got tricky in brainstorming within the thread mentioned above, is the advantages and disadvantages of adding rings to the pool vs. not. One suggestion was to create incentive by reducing the wait time by a day or two if you donate rings to the system. Another was to increase wait times for those who do not donate. 2 months of no donations increases your wait time to 3 weeks, another month makes it 4 weeks, etc.

There was also a suggestion of using orbs as payment to be able to "reach into the bucket" for a ring.


Great idea by The Crowned Empress:

The Crowned Empress

I wouldn't limit this by time, I would limit this to number. Say you only get five chances to reach into the ring pool before you can't anymore.

Five is generous. Maybe three, if that. I don't know why people would donate their unwanted rings when they could just salvage them, so if you relied only on that, there wouldn't be many rings in the pool at all to begin with. There wouldn't be much of a chance to get the ring you wanted if no one is donating. See my point?

Maybe this idea should be turned into something more of a Lost and Found. Where an NPC, Like nicolae...this would be right up his alley..."finds" some rings, but he will only let you take three if you don't already have a ring of that kind in your inventory.

I do like the idea of not being time limited, but by number. With 2 or 3 "free" choices in game and then an incentive to donate your rings to the pool rather than salvaging by increasing the number of rings you can remove there would always be a surplus of rings within the pool.

[Evil-Sui]

or you can just earn your rings like everyone else...

I see no "ring problem"

[Fallaciously Fabulous]

Evil-Sui

or you can just earn your rings like everyone else...

I see no "ring problem"

Clearly then you do not frequent the zOMG forum. Every single day there is a newbie who salvaged their only attack ring for orbs by mistake and is now stuck. This would also provide another way of getting rid of unused rings and benefiting players. The only reason I called it a "problem" was because I couldn't sum it up easily enough for the title.

Also, this is a suggestion thread. I'm not saying it's needed in the game, just that it could enhance the experience.

[Evil-Sui]

I completed Zomg way back...

I saw the that people salvaged rings, and there are two things those people could do to get them back

1. crew with a friendly crew (if those still exist these days) and wait for a ring drop
2. buy one off the marketplace...

and hopefully they will learn their lesson... and not salvage it a second time.

[Fallaciously Fabulous]

Evil-Sui

I completed Zomg way back...

I saw the that people salvaged rings, and there are two things those people could do to get them back

1. crew with a friendly crew (if those still exist these days) and wait for a ring drop
2. buy one off the marketplace...

and hopefully they will learn their lesson... and not salvage it a second time.

Yes, so have I. I still stay in the loop though to say the least.

Those options do exist, yes and they are the only ones. My solution is an IN GAME one.

They will have, the next one won't.

[Evil-Sui]

why not suggest something else?

I message that pops up when you are trying to salvage your last attack ring,

It can tell you "you must have at least one attack ring" or something...

then not let them salvage it...

[Captain Sword Face]

Couldn't they just check to see if it's their last attack ring, and if so, stop them destroying it?

Anyway your ring pool idea is very interesting, I must admit, and I'd like to contribute to it with another idea: what if people could trade rings into the pool to get a ring (or several rings) of roughly the same value?
Scenario: someone has a rank 4 defense ring they don't want anymore, so they trade it in, pick "I want two healing rings" and get two random rank-2 healing rings from the pool. Someone else comes along with five or six weak rings (drops they don't want) and trades them in for a healing ring, and they're given one of those.

Problem you might raise: People have no idea what they'll get.
Solution: Allow them to influence the choice by providing estimates/previews. E.G. if you say "2 healing rings" for your rank 4 ring, it says "You might get two rank 2 rings..." and preview a couple of healing rings from the pool that you have a chance of getting.

Another problem: Buy a few dozen 100g rings, trade them in for 100,000g ring, sell ring, repeat (this works, right..? It's been ages since I was last here...).
Solution: That only happens if you give them more than the total worth of their trade-in. If you always give them slightly less, then nobody can profit off it. Furthermore, that means the value of the pool is always growing. If someone gave you 100g and you gave them 80g, and that happened all the time, you'd be making 20g constantly which would add up. Same logic: give people slightly less rings than the combined value of their trade-in, and your ring pool is always growing. (Hey, you still get your rings, and they're still good).

[Fallaciously Fabulous]

Evil-Sui

why not suggest something else?

I message that pops up when you are trying to salvage your last attack ring,

It can tell you "you must have at least one attack ring" or something...

then not let them salvage it...

Why not accept this idea for what it is? A ring trading system without direct user to user transactions.

If you're so up on the idea of having a warning message to stop people salvaging rings, then suggest it. I'm not sure that game logic will make it possible to prevent salvaging any ring. Plus, people who would do that don't read messages anyways.

[Fallaciously Fabulous]

Spinall Dantrace

Couldn't they just check to see if it's their last attack ring, and if so, stop them destroying it?

Anyway your ring pool idea is very interesting, I must admit, and I'd like to contribute to it with another idea: what if people could trade rings into the pool to get a ring (or several rings) of roughly the same value?
Scenario: someone has a rank 4 defense ring they don't want anymore, so they trade it in, pick "I want two healing rings" and get two random rank-2 healing rings from the pool. Someone else comes along with five or six weak rings (drops they don't want) and trades them in for a healing ring, and they're given one of those.

Problem you might raise: People have no idea what they'll get.
Solution: Allow them to influence the choice by providing estimates/previews. E.G. if you say "2 healing rings" for your rank 4 ring, it says "You might get two rank 2 rings..." and preview a couple of healing rings from the pool that you have a chance of getting.

Another problem: Buy a few dozen 100g rings, trade them in for 100,000g ring, sell ring, repeat (this works, right..? It's been ages since I was last here...).
Solution: That only happens if you give them more than the total worth of their trade-in. If you always give them slightly less, then nobody can profit off it. Furthermore, that means the value of the pool is always growing. If someone gave you 100g and you gave them 80g, and that happened all the time, you'd be making 20g constantly which would add up. Same logic: give people slightly less rings than the combined value of their trade-in, and your ring pool is always growing. (Hey, you still get your rings, and they're still good).

Your idea is good, but a large part of what I'm trying to suggest here is that one does not have to put a ring in to get one out. Giving newbies the option gain back an attack ring if they accidentally salvaged theirs.

Also, rings are soulbound, so no worries about having people trying to resell rings they traded up for.

[Evil-Sui]

Because I remember having 15 defibs before I salvaged them all (but 1) and still was missing a couple rings from my ring collection.

yet other people had trouble finding defibs.

if you make it so they could keep trading in the rings until the got the one they wanted, it would make collecting ring sets too easy.

[Fallaciously Fabulous]

Evil-Sui

Because I remember having 15 defibs before I salvaged them all (but 1) and still was missing a couple rings from my ring collection.

yet other people had trouble finding defibs.

if you make it so they could keep trading in the rings until the got the one they wanted, it would make collecting ring sets too easy.

It's random, as is ring drops. Such is life. The advantage of this is that you can narrow down to a ring type if you need it.

Say you need a Crowd Control ring for a boss quest and have been farming for weeks with no luck. If all you need is crowd control, then you can achieve that.

It was never intended to be difficult to find rings, just random.

[Captain Sword Face]

xX-Angel In Your Eyes-Xx

Your idea is good, but a large part of what I'm trying to suggest here is that one does not have to put a ring in to get one out. Giving newbies the option gain back an attack ring if they accidentally salvaged theirs.

Also, rings are soulbound, so no worries about having people trying to resell rings they traded up for.

Well it's just a feature so people actually get something out of that trade-in thing. How many people are just going to donate a ring into nothingness? And still, your thing means they can keep taking rings.

Since there's profitability problems with anything that just gives you something for free (zero time, zero effort, zero cost), and there's keep-grabbing-until-you-get-something-good problems with what you're suggesting in particular... sure it's a nice feature, but isn't it better to just prevent it happening in the first place, and altogether stop people destroying their last attack ring?

Your pool thing still has a purpose though: for trading in.


By the way: Can't you buy/sell rings somehow? I thought you could do it last time I was here (but that was when zOMG was new). If so, there's no need to give someone that CC ring for free, just buy it.

[Chinaberry Tea]

Your idea is interesting...

it might be beneficial to show this thread (and the previous one you were talking about) to Qixter. I mean..ZOMG is still in its beta phase, there is plenty of room for improvement, and something like this is hard to determine unless you test it out first.

However, I wouldn't make this a reoccurring thing. I would make it for emergencies, like..say you did salvage your only attack ring. You could go to the ring pool and reach in for a new one. However, I wouldn't limit this by time, I would limit this to number. Say you only get five chances to reach into the ring pool before you can't anymore.

Five is generous. Maybe three, if that. I don't know why people would donate their unwanted rings when they could just salvage them, so if you relied only on that, there wouldn't be many rings in the pool at all to begin with. There wouldn't be much of a chance to get the ring you wanted if no one is donating. See my point?

Maybe this idea should be turned into something more of a Lost and Found. Where an NPC, Like nicolae...this would be right up his alley..."finds" some rings, but he will only let you take three if you don't already have a ring of that kind in your inventory.

[Saburoo]

Spinall Dantrace

xX-Angel In Your Eyes-Xx

Your idea is good, but a large part of what I'm trying to suggest here is that one does not have to put a ring in to get one out. Giving newbies the option gain back an attack ring if they accidentally salvaged theirs.

Also, rings are soulbound, so no worries about having people trying to resell rings they traded up for.

Well it's just a feature so people actually get something out of that trade-in thing. How many people are just going to donate a ring into nothingness? And still, your thing means they can keep taking rings.

Since there's profitability problems with anything that just gives you something for free (zero time, zero effort, zero cost), and there's keep-grabbing-until-you-get-something-good problems with what you're suggesting in particular... sure it's a nice feature, but isn't it better to just prevent it happening in the first place, and altogether stop people destroying their last attack ring?

Your pool thing still has a purpose though: for trading in.


By the way: Can't you buy/sell rings somehow? I thought you could do it last time I was here (but that was when zOMG was new). If so, there's no need to give someone that CC ring for free, just buy it.

You can buy unsoulbound rings, but all rings found in game, and any ring equipped will become soulbound... Rings are quite expensive now, lots has changed since zOMG! was new. Read this for more information on soulbinding...

All rings from the pool would be soulbound, I'm guessing.

EDIT: Oh and with the 2 week wait limit, you'd have a better time of finding rings just from animated in the game.

[Fallaciously Fabulous]

Saburoo

Oh and with the 2 week wait limit, you'd have a better time of finding rings just from animated in the game.

Restrictions were what was seeming most difficult to determine. I actually much prefer the "limited number" solution. You have 2 free ring choices and then for every 10 rings, let's say, you drop into the pool after that you earn one more ring grabbing opportunity.

I'm not saying it isn't easier just to get them from the game, just that it's a way to solve the "I salvaged my Solar Rays" mistake that is constantly made without being a hindrance to other players and preventing the creation of needless mule accounts. It also narrows the field to get that one ring at the end of the game you just can't seem to find.

I know the idea's not perfect, it needs tweaking, just that it could be a beneficial system within the game. I thought of the idea, so I wanted to put it out there.