GGG: Is the Orb of Alchemy vendor recipe working as intended?

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MrDDT wrote:

Your pigeonhole principle doesnt apply here.

First you have it backwards.

N in this case = # of rares
M in this case = # of tabs

If N>M then already there is an issue of player with MORE rares would have more wealth thus changes the whole concept.

If both players had the same # of rares, and only different number of tabs. Then the # of matches would be 100% same chance. Tabs have NO effect on the # of rares NOR does it have an effect on the # of chances of matching rares.

Nice maths buddy.
The two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. It is the fact that if you have more tabs, you will get more matches.

The rate at which you will find a match is directly proportional to the number of rares you are hoarding and because of the limited possible rare names, hoarding enough rares will eventually guarantee your next rare to yield a match.

More tabs expand your available match pool, so if we compare two players that find rares at the same RATE, the player with more tabs will outperform the other eventually. This is not convenience, this is a clear cut advantage.

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lukeiy wrote:

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MrDDT wrote:

Your pigeonhole principle doesnt apply here.

First you have it backwards.

N in this case = # of rares
M in this case = # of tabs

If N>M then already there is an issue of player with MORE rares would have more wealth thus changes the whole concept.

If both players had the same # of rares, and only different number of tabs. Then the # of matches would be 100% same chance. Tabs have NO effect on the # of rares NOR does it have an effect on the # of chances of matching rares.

Nice maths buddy.
The two scenarios are not mutually exclusive. It is the fact that if you have more tabs, you will get more matches.

The rate at which you will find a match is directly proportional to the number of rares you are hoarding and because of the limited possible rare names, hoarding enough rares will eventually guarantee your next rare to yield a match.

More tabs expand your available match pool, so if we compare two players that find rares at the same RATE, the player with more tabs will outperform the other eventually. This is not convenience, this is a clear cut advantage.

# of matches has NOTHING to do with # of tabs.

It only has to do with the # of rares you have. You can have a billion tabs, with 0 rares and never get a match. You can have 1 tab full and have tons of matches.

If you have 2 players that find rares at the same rate, the # of matches will be 100% the same. # of tabs is not a factor.

Now if you were to say that someone got an account and was given full tabs with rares, and another got an account and was given full tabs with rares, the one with MORE tabs would win. Not because of more tabs per say, but because more base # of rares.
Sadly no one is given fully tabs of rares, they have to go out and find them or trade for them.

Advantage here is NOT # of matches or rares someone has with more tabs, but the OPTION to delay when they want to sort out the matches.

PlayerA with 4 tabs, can farm for 3 hours before clearing room to farm again
PlayerB with 40 tabs can farm for 30 hours before clearing room to farm again.

Both players will get the same # of matches per hour.


Let me explain it this way.
If playerA had to type in password each time they logged in, vs playerB that could log in 10 times in a row no password needed, but the 10th time they had to type in the password in 10 times.
Both players have to type in password 10 times, one just isnt bothered with it everyday, but is bothered with a longer 10th log in.

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MrDDT wrote:

PlayerA with 4 tabs, can farm for 3 hours before clearing room to farm again
PlayerB with 40 tabs can farm for 30 hours before clearing room to farm again.

Both players will get the same # of matches per hour.

Ok, while we are going with analogies:

Let's say I'm dealing cards to two people, 1 at a time. One person is allowed to hold 10 cards, the other 5. When they reach their limit, they have to throw one of their other cards before taking a new one. The aim is to get as many pairs as possible. When a pair is made, those cards are removed.

Guess who gets more? If you say they both receive the same, then I give up. This is your moment, show us that brain of yours

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lukeiy wrote:

Ok, while we are going with analogies:

Let's say I'm dealing cards to two people, 1 at a time. One person is allowed to hold 10 cards, the other 5. When they reach their limit, they have to throw one of their other cards before taking a new one. The aim is to get as many pairs as possible. When a pair is made, those cards are removed.

Guess who gets more? If you say they both receive the same, then I give up. This is your moment, show us that brain of yours

That is a nice example, easy enough for most people to understand I hope

WARNING: Long post!!

Let me put another post in here as people didn't understand me the first time and I see people arguing about stuff but not mentioning other important stuff.

OK, the prime currency in this game is time. Person with more playtime will always get ahead of the person with less playtime. So we have to assume all players play the game the same amount. GGG cannot control how long each of us plays unless they were to anger the whole community by having the game online only at certain times :D

So when you understand this lets get to part 2 which is timesinks. This game has many timesinks. Most of them are on purpose like small inventory.
The effectiveness of farming is in direct relation to reducing timesinks.
Matching alchemy orb recipe is a HUGE timesink. The game does not make it easy to do so. You cannot see all the item names at the same time and you cannot auto-arrange items in stash by alphabet.
You can do like that previous poster said, have your own spreadsheet and manually input name of each Rare item in it as well as stash tab number and some basic description (which is more effective long term but not productive to having fun in the game) and sort it so it comes up with matches. Or you can use an outside program like the Chrome App.

Now, more stash tabs lets you collect more items and keep them in and continue playing. Then at the end of the day you come to town, run App and get matches. Someone doing it would an app would go crazy due to what I wrote earlier. Someone with less stash tabs would need to do it more often and with all things being equal his timesink will be bigger and as a result he is now lagging behind other players.

Both GGG and others said using multiple accounts is same as having more stash tabs. I have yet so see anyone explain how would they transfer items from one account to another without a help of another player or having multiple computers?! Even if they did, it is a HUGE timesink to transfer items to one character to get orbs. Something that a person with one account and 40 tabs can do few times faster. So he is again reducing his timesinks and getting ahead.

Now lets compare two gamers with same amount of time but different income. One is a out of job dude that plays the game for 12h while waiting to get a new job. Another is a son of a rich man that plays the game for 12h while not needing to get a job. One can afford to spend 200-500$ to get lots of stash tabs, another is maybe playing with up to 10 of them and needs to use many extra accounts. I am sorry but the guy that spent 200+ $ is in the lead.

Of course RNG could frak the rich son and give better loot to the unemployed dude but that is something nobody can control (including GGG) and cannot be taken into consideration for this.

OK, what can GGG do. If they stand behind their statement that they will not promote P2W they must do something.
1. Limit extra stash to 10 per account. If the rich son wants to have 50 tabs let him sink his time into transfering them from one account into another

2. Rework your webpage so chrome app and alike programs don't work with it.

3. Remake Alchemy Orb recipe so it is easier to use. Chaos Orb recipe does not need outside apps to use it. You can match items by looking at their graphics, if you have what you need it is faster then following the instruction from the App, all you need is to organize your stash so all the junk rares are not in the same tab as good rares. I managed to match items for a couple of Chaos orbs without the chrome app, but never managed to matched any for Alchemy.

This is my 2c. I am sorry for grammar mistakes, I am not an English native speaker.

EDIT: Let me add another thing. With Chrome App people are imputing more Alchemy orbs into economy then initially wanted which will reduce its worth. Newbies will not be able to buy stuff from high level players with Alchemy like before and Alchemy drops more often then Chaos or GCP.

If alchs are worthless like they should be at higher levels, you will be able to buy 10 alchs for a chaos from a player who played longer than you. Let's keep this going. I really feel like repeating myself and being called thick headed for using logic.

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Kirisute_Gomen wrote:

If alchs are worthless like they should be at higher levels, you will be able to buy 10 alchs for a chaos from a player who played longer than you. Let's keep this going. I really feel like repeating myself and being called thick headed for using logic.

Ok that is true for last 5% of my post, but you managed to ignore other 95% of more important parts.

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Torin wrote:

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Kirisute_Gomen wrote:

If alchs are worthless like they should be at higher levels, you will be able to buy 10 alchs for a chaos from a player who played longer than you. Let's keep this going. I really feel like repeating myself and being called thick headed for using logic.

Ok that is true for last 5% of my post, but you managed to ignore other 95% of more important parts.

I didn't ignore it. My statement applies to all of it. Everyone will have them if they become worthless. At that point who cares if someone makes 10 a day.

Try again.

I've read the majority of this thread since it started, checking up on its progress whenever I came back to the forums. In general, I'll state that those who have determined this alchemy orb recipe as paying for an advantage have a more compelling argument than those who do not believe it as such.

Truth is, I'm fine with it, though. Even if there is a time sink difference between muling and a potential for every rare to become closer to 1/2 of an alchemy orb or closer to 1/3 of a regal.

Perhaps my acceptance of this is higher than other people's, but this is what I honestly think: some orbs in this game are certainly more powerful than others, but by and large, the two that are affected by this most, Alchemy and Regal (don't count Chaos: the Chaos recipe requires 1/2 of a stash tab *at most* to keep running smoothly), are simply not that powerful overall. They are rare and risky. Alteration orbs are common and stable. It becomes much easier for a player to use hordes of alteration orbs over alchemy orbs, and only after using bajillions of alteration orbs will a player even bother thinking about using a Regal.

As such, the rate of usage of Alteration orbs is way higher than the rate of usage of Alchemy orbs or Regal orbs. With the way that maps are done, actually, this gets way out of hand; on an average map, I might use 10 alterations myself, but I wouldn't even bother to use a single alchemy orb and there is *no way* I would risk a good roll on a map with a Regal orb.

So what do these orbs do? They stagnate. They become inventory space. I see no reason for a player ever to need more than 1 stack of Regals at any given time. Alchemies... you could blow a ton of them on rings or something, but in general, they only get used after finding (much more valuable) high-link or high tier white equipment. Similar to another case, this means that Scourings are actually a more valuable commodity than alchemy orbs, and as long as they cost (unrelated to any other currency type) Chance orbs to obtain, I don't think our economy is in any trouble.

In fact, the only ones who will eventually lose out in the economy are the people who either blow their orbs frivolously (which would be the same anyway) or those who fall behind later, and try abusing this alchemy orb strategy when the economy finally figures out that 2 alchemy orbs really isn't worth a chaos.

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Kirisute_Gomen wrote:

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Torin wrote:

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Kirisute_Gomen wrote:

If alchs are worthless like they should be at higher levels, you will be able to buy 10 alchs for a chaos from a player who played longer than you. Let's keep this going. I really feel like repeating myself and being called thick headed for using logic.

Ok that is true for last 5% of my post, but you managed to ignore other 95% of more important parts.

I didn't ignore it. My statement applies to all of it. Everyone will have them if they become worthless. At that point who cares if someone makes 10 a day.

Try again.

No, it only applies to economy side of things, and only in part. It does not change the fact that those with more alchemy can get a better chance to craft better items and then farm more efficiently and get ahead in exp and lead in the ladder races.