Eternal aren't the problem, Mirrors are!

I think we should remove mirroring, and Eternal orbs should be renamed to "Orb of Kalandra".

By doing this we cannot duplicate items, so anyone that wants godly gear will have to farm and trade for Orbs of Kalandra to add suffixes 4-5 and 6.

This orb can use the mirror skin for appearence. With the ability to snap shot the item. If you choose to revert, the imprint becomes destroyed and the gambled modifier is lost. If you like the RNG roll, the imprint will be destroyed with the updated prefix/suffix. This of course means that we need to add a prompt when modding the gear with this orb.

"keep Item state" or "reverse item state"

When the item is tagged with a Kalandra Imprint, it cannot be used, or traded.

This would be the best approach. Of course that would mean after exalts, this orb will have to be either eternal orb rarity, or slightly more. But significantly less than a Mirror.

I disagree about removing eternals, i have 2k hours in with no drop and a few candidates up for grabs i would like to RNG.

Get rid of the mirror's and rename the eternal orb as well as apply the signature mirror skin to the Orb of Kalandra!

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dolan_grey wrote:

also good job removing eternals but leaving all the existin ones, just wait a week to let people understand which items are the best and a couple perfect new items will pop up and the mirroring will begin anew.

I kinda doubt that will be the case. People are presuming here that what's always happened always will happen, but not thinking about the implications of eternal spent = eternal gone forever. It could as well be a case of collusion, or who blinks first?

Why collusion? Because as Axn, Ventor, Jin or Rayamnnnnn you could just agree as a group to make no new mirror-worthy items, having cornered the eternal market, and keep reaping pure profits off the existing mirror-level items with an extremely high chance no better item will ever come to exist. You can then dribble out eternals to the market on occasion while the price continues to rise, getting a hefty chunk of exalts for all your stockpiled eternals and basically having it both ways.

Why who blinks first? Because as one of those named above, you may even decide to enter into a collusive agreement but then break your word and craft a new version of an existing competitor's item, in an effort to cut them out of part of the market.

As such I don't believe anyone sitting on lots of eternals will be rushing to make the first better-perfect item, because that will deplete their stockpile and give people opportunities to undercut their pet items. It's a zero sum game and those are the most amusing, generally.

Will be interesting to see what happens.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Aim_Deep wrote:

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diablofdb wrote:

Let's just remove both mirror and ethernal then

What for? I never heard one good reason that doesn't border on envy - a toxic emotion.

Are you saying you didn't read my WoT in this thread, or that it borders on envy?

Absoluty is does. A) what do you care how rich someone gets? B) what do you care if someone wants the tippy top for?

I dont have it and beat uber 100x (see my sales thread all the loots i got off her)

You only need avg shit to beat this game and everything in it so no one is stopping me.

Removing (or reworking) mirrors won't change the fact that you'll have to be the wealthiest dude on the block to have the best items (or play like a madman).

But it will make impossible to duplicate in big quantities perfect items, so people will expect to find something useful from rares (even if extremely unlikely). That is, in my opinion, a good change to make.

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Aim_Deep wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Aim_Deep wrote:

I never heard one good reason that doesn't border on envy - a toxic emotion.

Are you saying you didn't read my WoT in this thread, or that it borders on envy?

Absoluty is does. A) what do you care how rich someone gets? B) what do you care if someone wants the tippy top for?

I dont have it and beat uber 100x (see my sales thread all the loots i got off her)

The demand on orbs caused by high-end crafting has an effect throughout the entire economy. Mirrors effect high-end crafting. Thus, Mirrors effect pretty much everyone who has traded gear for orbs or vice versa. Although I'll admit the effect is indirect and dilluted by distance, it is still an effect on people.

You're basically making the "why have separate league for hardcore, just make it a checkbox on account creation" argument. If it weren't for economy, it wouldn't matter. But economy. So it does.

Although hey, props to good players who don't need teh itemz to pwn.

----

That establishes why I care. A recent discussion, however, has me wondering if Mirrors might be good for the game. Since this would be a reversal of my position earlier in this thread, and I don't want to flip-flop too much, I'm going to really think about it for a while.

Given the aftermath where players will use more exalts on yolo crafting, does that mean Exalt would be higher in value after 2.0 implemented?



Love,
Bunny

I will say, that I'd done some thinking on the issue of mirrors... Well, that's a lie, I should say I've done MORE thinking; the impact of these on the economy is something I've considered heavily since not long after I started playing, but I've come to another possibility...

Rather than eliminate mirrors, simply find a way to nerf them. Plenty of suggestions have been made to this effect, but all of them suffer some serious problems, fundamentally altering it into something unrecognizable. However, I've come across a potential solution:

Allow for mirrored items to be traded... ONCE. Once a mirrored item exists, it'll be tagged; either a binary "tradable" tag, or perhaps (for flavor) naming the character/account that created that mirrored copy; the result remains the same. Once a mirrored item is traded (to the one who comissioned it) the item becomes ENTIRELY account-bound; they could put it in the stash, swap it between characters, but it could NEVER be traded to another player.

This would allow part of the existing mirror economy to continue... While eliminating much of the ability of mirrored item recirculation to saturate the market. Would it eliminate the effects entirely on the economy? No, because "Pay for a mirror service" would remain an option. However, it would remove the hard "ceiling" it largely places, where demand can be partly sated by simply buying a pre-existing copy. It removes the wealth ENTIRELY from circulation, as the orbs are consumed, and in economic terms, a mirrored item has a value of zero. (as it cannot be traded)

In short, while it wouldn't eliminate the ability to grab GG gear with mirrors, it WOULD eliminate any deflationary pressure suppressing prices. Odds are mirror fees would go up, as they wouldn't have to compete against their own "used" copies. In turn, this could drive demand for non-mirrored gear to fill in the gap.

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davidnn5 wrote:

Will be interesting to see what happens.

I do agree; without a mechanism (like the combination of eternals + mirrors) to help maintain one's position, strong power rarely lasts forever.

Exactly how it'll go down remains to be seen, but what IS certain that in a year, the landscape of "wealthiest exiles" will certainly look much different from how it's been for the past year-plus.

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BunnyGlobe wrote:

Given the aftermath where players will use more exalts on yolo crafting, does that mean Exalt would be higher in value after 2.0 implemented?

The exact effects remain to be seen: a lot of forces are at work there:

- First, there is that very true part; no more eternals means more yolo-exalting, as the "save it for use with an eternal" restraint will be gone. This might suggest a further rise in exalt prices due to increased demand here.

- Secondly, though, no more eternals means an end to the large quantity of exalts spent in the eternal-exalt cycle. I'm not sure precisely how much of the game's exalt-sink this was, but I'd say it was at least 10% of it. Might even be a majority, but now it'll disappear. This might suggest a decrease in demand, pressing towards lower prices.

- Lastly, in anticipation of new T1 mods for Awakening, Exalt prices have ALREADY gone up a lot; compared to lower currency, they've nearly doubled versus chaos over the past year. This might suggest that any further change in price will be "softer," as it was already partly speculated for.

Three different forces at work at least; it's up in the air which one will prove dominant, but all three will play a result in the exalt's value in months to come.

Let me put some salt in the wound with saying this ....

Mirrors are not the problem , Permanent leagues existance is :D

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

The demand on orbs caused by high-end crafting has an effect throughout the entire economy. Mirrors effect high-end crafting. Thus, Mirrors effect pretty much everyone who has traded gear for orbs or vice versa. Although I'll admit the effect is indirect and dilluted by distance, it is still an effect on people.

You're basically making the "why have separate league for hardcore, just make it a checkbox on account creation" argument. If it weren't for economy, it wouldn't matter. But economy. So it does.

Although hey, props to good players who don't need teh itemz to pwn.

----

That establishes why I care. A recent discussion, however, has me wondering if Mirrors might be good for the game. Since this would be a reversal of my position earlier in this thread, and I don't want to flip-flop too much, I'm going to really think about it for a while.

Well everything effects economy in some way. Like chroms wouldn't cost anything if odds wernt so bad to off color or if they dropped more. I don't know what to say to arguments like "effects the economy" other we all play under same economy and you can take out much of the economy by following or creating budget builds as I implied earlier.

And no I want more options in this game like SFL (for ppl who hate economy) and leaving eternal (for ppl who want to builds ultimate warriors), more leagues, etc because more option means more players you can please which means GGG coffers grow and at end of day is better for me which is all that matters. I dont worry about anyone else I just want solid game for me which takes resources which means players which means appealing to players.. Removing either Mirrors or eternal (or legacy one of your favorites) is going backwards.

Eternal Orbs in their implementation and GGG likely underestimating just how far the playerbase and some players would go to use a mechanic that these orbs introduced is how this problem got to be where it was. That and GGG likely not even considering other potential, limiting options for the things that they introduce into the game and wanting everything to be so open and free of restrictions. Sadly, that never, ever works out, and where ever there is some type of loophole, advantage, or whatever terminology you want to use...people can and will jump on it especially when tied to an economy and the potential for in-game or RL wealth comes about.

I saw this sort of problem coming down the pipeline when Eternal Orbs were introduced, so I am not surprised that it's come to this, but I must say that I am disappointed in GGG deciding to get rid of Eternals. Nor do I think Mirrors themselves were the problems, but what the problem was, was that the synergy between these items along with Exalted Orbs were just too good. There was a potential solution to it that could've been done way back when Eternals came out, but I don't think GGG had even considered it at the time given their attitude. That solution was something that I'm sure others thought to shun away because of how 'evil' it was, and would site Diablo III as their example...yeah...those three letters...BoA (Bind on Account).

Making it so that using an Eternal Orb on an item thus binds it to your account (and yes, you get the proper warning box, etc, etc) means that it can no longer be traded on the market or to anyone else. It's yours until the servers shut down or you sell it to a vendor, or destroy it. If you try and mirror the item it retains its BoA status and obviously any reverts will keep the BoA status as well, so you can have multiple imprints of the same item, but again, only you can use it. This has two things going for it:


1. Allowing for Eternals to drop more frequently and allowing people to potentially work towards a goal of getting a 'god-tier' piece of gear as opposed to praying to get a lucky drop or buy something from someone else. Or someone does get a lucky drop and need one or two more stats on it for it to be 'godly' and they can ensure it is with the imprint mechanic.

2. Gives players a tradeoff and a choice that GGG is all about (or used to be...still is?). You can have the 'ultimate item' with perfect stats on it, but you're the only one who can use it and thus it has no market value. OR, you can try and craft something and try and get it to mirror-worthy status to where you can sell it, but then you're also locked into that one version of it. No 'monopoly' on imprinted versions and cornering one type of weapon/armor/accessory because you have the perfect rolls for other permutations and would have to get really lucky to get another one.


Now, I'm well aware this is likely not perfect in every way, shape, and form, but I think it would be far better than what we have now. Of course, I also know the ship has already sailed and GGG is going through with their decision. Again, I don't think it was any one of these items (Mirrors or Eternals) that were the problem, but it was their synergy that was. I also think there were more creative ways to break said synergy rather than just deleting the orb from the game, but...GGG's game and decision, and in the end it's their call.