Runics are outdated and unrewarding.

[Kythana]

In their current state, runics feel like some of the most unrewarding content, when playing them as intended.

Even with the changes to search, runics with a group are often extremely unrewarding financially.

This is almost tied back into two main problems: Player competition and RNG.

If another player/group has recently cleared a runic ahead of you? The rune chest, and the smaller chests have nothing in it. If you accidently bring a player along who has cleared a runic recently? Nothing in the rune chest.

If the chests have been bashed, whether runic or individual chests, you also get nothing from them, depending on the timing. And they take even longer to respawn, so a player without OL/DT, you are actively harming other dungeon-goers by playing.

Runics are made even worse by RNG. Not only can the runic chest often have a very low value piece, but the ore at the end of the dungeon is also randomized. (I'm aware the ore randomization is a bug, and used to persist, but there seems to be no action taken to fix it.)

I feel like this lootbox aspect is a really outdated form of dungeon rewards. If this is going to stay, some sort of trade-up system would be appreciated. Or actually scaling the rewards towards the difficulty of the dungeon. Easy runics have the same rewards as hard ones, and it just feels bad.

[Ping14]

Not so true for sailing loot. Spoils on sailing are more rewarding than dungeon crawling atleast when it comes to runics. You find them already made, not as a crafting ingredient. You often find the masterly variant aswell.

[AstralUniverse]

The per-character cooldown is both annoying to make excuses for IC (sorry, I cant join you for baator, I am... cough cough sick) and it's also just the most anti-social mechanic we have here. Not sure why there hasnt been a better solution to the runic farming issue than... this.

[Xerah]

Turn them all into writs, once a day (19h) timer just like writs. Come back, turn it in, get a runic roll. No more weird “you can’t come” or people wasting their time because someone was there too recently with no way to tell. Then you can adjust % based on difficulty or popularity

I still don’t think it competes with sailing though.

[La Villa Strangiato]

the massive timesink and gear investment that is sailing should not overtake dungeoning

[Kythana]

It's kind of insane how strong sailing is in comparison to traditional content, in terms of rewards.

Sailors are pumping out millions from treasure chests, containing runes, adamantine, and rare unique items that cannot be found anywhere else. I consistently see Navy stores that contain a huge amount of Tier 3 runes. In the rare occasion where a parrot chalice is sold, I've seen it go for over three million, and it sells extremely quickly.

Yet existing runic dungeons are getting nerfed, and I don't understand why.

[-XXX-]

This seems more like an issue that revolves around balancing solo grind vs. team effort.

When it comes to runic shrines:

• I dunno what the optimal runic drop on a 3 hr timer ought to look like, but generally when it comes to loot - if it feels good, something's gone wrong
• I agree with AstralUniverse that the personal timers can be really awkward at times
• I doubt that turning runics into 1/day writs would have really helped as it'd have only increased the cooldown without really addressing the core problem

When it comes to sailing:

• amazing pirate chests exist & get opened every once in a while, but very much the same way as it is with runic chests you end up opening one with 1-3 adamantine ingots and a bunch of generic loot most of the time
• it takes 6 map pieces looted from RNG generated ships at random time periods to assemble a map needed to find a pirate chest - if anybody claims that they can consistently keep doing this every 3-4 hours, I'd very much like to see the gameplay video
• pirate chests have clearly been designed to reward team effort and split between multiple characters after one or two sailing sessions & this is for the most part being kept in check by ship design as most ships require multiple characters to operate*

Generally speaking:
Both runic shrines and pirate chests aren't nearly as big of a deal as it might seem as most coin doesn't come from chest jackpots but from inocuous generic loot sold to the peddler from the loot bags after PvE sessions - running circles around Minmir Battlefield (or any other dungeons where monsters drop scrolls and jewelry in abundance at the moment) is more profitable in the long run than either runics or pirate treasure - especially once we throw appraise into the mix.
Crafting and selling consumables that are sought after is another avenue of making a large quantities of gold faster than by selling runic materials.

---

*now, this at least applied up until the beginning of this year when ships recieved a crew requirement decrease & 4 ships in particular (namely: Tmberfleet, Iron Throne Scout, Weary Troubadour and Montalbán) greatly enabled solo sailing grind as they now have a crew requirement of 1 and can deploy a siege weapon (i.e. can engage and defeat NPC ships to be boarded). I suspect this might have been an oversight as the two ships that previously had crew requirement 1 and 0 weapons (meaning they cannot engage NPC ships) now have a crew requirement of 2.

[PowerWord Rage]

Rewards do not necessary need to be monetary value.
It would be good if completion of epic dungeons award something esle instead such as but not limited to, reputation in the city to enjoy perks or perhaps something along the line of radiant heart / sencliff pirates whereby your reputation grows as you do more.

There's not much reason to accumulate vast amount of wealth in Arelith since it lost meaning very very quickly for majority of the player base.

I would rather see more Roleplay oriented rewards than Monetary ones, if there's any choice in the matter.

[Xerah]

• I doubt that turning runics into 1/day writs would have really helped as it'd have only increased the cooldown without really addressing the core problem

The thing is, very few people are running multiple ruinics a day. This would let the average player have a much easier time accessing the system without getting lucky going to the viper monks between refreshes, having an OOC group, or the group letting them keep the one ruinic. It would level the playing field.

You want to go alone? Great. You want to go with a group? Also great. You want to do 3 a day? Well, this isn't a great system for you.

For me, and a lot of other people like me who engage with the rune system similarly, this is a much better change overall. Right now, the system vastly over-rewards those people who get in there as much as possible.

[Ping14]

Double runic altars also doesnt make sense if they both share the cooldown. Havent visited if this is still true. But I remember this being the case for some of these locations.

[AstralUniverse]

I doubt that turning runics into 1/day writs would have really helped as it'd have only increased the cooldown without really addressing the core problem

Actually, I think it would. Not going to die on this hill but I'm under the impression that it would be beneficial, at least for me, someone who doesnt get more than 1 runic in irl 24h on average simply because in the dead hours (when I normally play and solo the easier and more soloable runics) I'm going to find maybe one runic, and then if I'm online closer to the rush hours (EU early evening) it becomes increasingly harder to find anything in the easier runics, and the hard runics require a party, which is increasingly harder to find people off cooldown (and I cant even tell because it's not something I would ask them oocly, and definitely not ic) so to settle for "guaranteed" 1 runic material per day, regardless of how many party members I have, regardless of how many runic dungeons I've grinded, sounds like a relief tbh. No more apologizing and making a silly excuse not to join when I'm on cooldown (even tho sometimes I just really want to RP with that group and it sucks not to join them) and not having someone on cooldown whistling innocently while the whole party wonders (ICly) why chest after chest, dungeon after dungeon, everything is empty (knowing OOCly that someone is on cooldown eyeroll)

Speaking only for myself of course. Someone who solos a runic every 24 IC hours (and somehow knows where to go in order to not open empty chests) likely would disagree and have a much different experience. That's just my two cents, and I'm not really sure what playstyle should be rewarded the most (but my instinct tells me that the playstyle that is most inclusive should be rewarded the most which already rules out these silly individual timers).

[In Sorrow We Trust]

my concern is not so much for runics.

i have sailed and done runic dungeons. sailing and dungeons both require investment. dungeons in the form of a competent build, sailing in the form of gear, maxing out the skill, and probably investing one or two feats

On sailing: I have, even with a 100+ search character, done a week's worth of sailing (with a group) and only gotten 3 adamantine ingots to show for it.

On dungeoning: I can run some of these runics alone without a crew, and it takes no more than 30 minutes each time. i got two perfect chardalyns from the runics just this week, which for us meant everyone in the party got a gold share (as nobody needed it)

the feelsbad arrives when, for dungeoning, you have a sizeable group and repeatedly get unlucky. but this applies to sailing too, which is a vastly larger time investment.

i agree with the original post, but i think the problem is more nuanced for most people: dungeons are not monetarily rewarding unless you take a character with search and appraise with you, and even then, one run maybe buys you two wands

[LordofThunder]

Why not consider giving runic dungeons unique items such as parrot chalices and those runic circle placeables? (not necessarily those, but giving an example).

[-XXX-]

It's important to realize why we're chasing runes in the first place:

• if it's for personal use, then making the coin and simply buying one is likely the faster/more comfy way if luck isn't on our side
• if it's just to sell, then there's faster and more consistent ways of generating gp

Be it runic shrines or pirate treasure, it's all random lottery. Trying to force luck with volume of attempts usually just leads to more frustration, because statistics and luck are two different things - opening 10 runic chests doesn't guarantee a masterwork material drop. We can easily go around opening 20 shrines only to get blueleaf samples/clay while somebody else opens only 2 and gets away with intact theurglass and perfect chardalyn stone.

While I fully empathize with the call for 1/day cooldowns, the prevalent luck factor already mitigates the difference between players with varying time available and makes everything more or less fair. The point of the cooldown is to impose long enough time period to disrupt any dungeon circling patterns by making sure a loot drop doesn't occur every rotation. Both a 3 hrs period and 1 day period accomplish that and I honestly don't see much difference here, but if a 1/day cooldown would help addressing any FOMO or excessive tryhard approach to the game, then sure why not?

I also wouldn't pay much attention to shop flexing. Thing to realize here is that most of the shops have an entire faction behind them or their owner simply bought half the merch off lucky upstart adventurers with the intent to resell them for profit.
Nobody should be feeling any pressure to compete here.

[silverpheonix]

Why not consider giving runic dungeons unique items such as parrot chalices and those runic circle placeables? (not necessarily those, but giving an example).

That would be super cool. I'm sure there's plenty of unused fixture models for statues, chairs, desks, etc. that could be added in. Or even a two seater couch.

[AstralUniverse]

While I fully empathize with the call for 1/day cooldowns, the prevalent luck factor already mitigates the difference between players with varying time available and makes everything more or less fair. The point of the cooldown is to impose long enough time period to disrupt any dungeon circling patterns by making sure a loot drop doesn't occur every rotation. Both a 3 hrs period and 1 day period accomplish that and I honestly don't see much difference here, but if a 1/day cooldown would help addressing any FOMO or excessive tryhard approach to the game, then sure why not?

If we do 1/day cooldown which sort of 'writ' based, it will no longer be party shared and we wont be limited to partying only with people off cooldown in order to pull stuff from shrines because we wouldnt be pulling runes from shrines. That's already a huge improvement. I dont think we're really looking for MORE runes, we simply want to not be anti-social in order to get them. At least that's my standpoint. also, 1 per rl day is just an arbitrary value just to serve the idea to the forum, it could as well be once in 12 hours, or 6 hours or really whatever is deemed apropriate by the admins.

[Peacewhisper]

my concern is not so much for runics.

i have sailed and done runic dungeons. sailing and dungeons both require investment. dungeons in the form of a competent build, sailing in the form of gear, maxing out the skill, and probably investing one or two feats

On sailing: I have, even with a 100+ search character, done a week's worth of sailing (with a group) and only gotten 3 adamantine ingots to show for it.

On dungeoning: I can run some of these runics alone without a crew, and it takes no more than 30 minutes each time. i got two perfect chardalyns from the runics just this week, which for us meant everyone in the party got a gold share (as nobody needed it)

the feelsbad arrives when, for dungeoning, you have a sizeable group and repeatedly get unlucky. but this applies to sailing too, which is a vastly larger time investment.

i agree with the original post, but i think the problem is more nuanced for most people: dungeons are not monetarily rewarding unless you take a character with search and appraise with you, and even then, one run maybe buys you two wands

I've got a character with high appraise and search and it's still more profitable to open one pirate chest and find a parrot chalice than it it is to do 3 dungeon runs a day for several months. Name one dungeon loot item I can sell for 4 million gold. Bet you can't.

Rewards do not necessary need to be monetary value.
It would be good if completion of epic dungeons award something esle instead such as but not limited to, reputation in the city to enjoy perks or perhaps something along the line of radiant heart / sencliff pirates whereby your reputation grows as you do more.

There's not much reason to accumulate vast amount of wealth in Arelith since it lost meaning very very quickly for majority of the player base.

I would rather see more Roleplay oriented rewards than Monetary ones, if there's any choice in the matter.

This is a neat idea but I would only want it to count if you complete the dungeon solo. Anyone can get a more skilled player or a group of players to carry them. I am not impressed if someone finished red dragon island once with a group of 10 epic characters and I don't think any kind of perks should be that easy to get. If they can do it alone though that is impressive and deserves to be recognized by NPC's in the game world. I'm not sure how easy this would be to implement though and I can already imagine ways people might try to exploit it. There are probably better, less anti-social systems the devs could be working on.

Why not consider giving runic dungeons unique items such as parrot chalices and those runic circle placeables? (not necessarily those, but giving an example).

Please do this. Heck, add the parrot chalices. It's not fair that sailing characters get to gatekeep pirate chests and sell these things for ridiculous prices when they've probably got a dozen of them sitting in a chest somewhere. It's especially infuriating when you basically carry the crew for multiple sails and never see any of the loot from the multiple pirate chests you helped to find. If people were more fair when it comes to sharing loot I'd say to let them keep the parrot chalices but that hasn't been my experience.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

I guess i just don't see the value in the parrot chalice, personally.

for 4million gold you could buy 100 stacks of wisp bottles for 6 people and have more than half a stack extra to spare.

i genuinely think the price of the chalice is massively overblown

[Peacewhisper]

I guess i just don't see the value in the parrot chalice, personally.

for 4million gold you could buy 100 stacks of wisp bottles for 6 people and have more than half a stack extra to spare.

i genuinely think the price of the chalice is massively overblown

Agreed. The price is overblown because small groups of players are gate keeping it. Not because it's actually that rare or that overpowered. Put them in dungeon chests with a 0.5% drop rate and they'll be selling for a million in a few weeks.

[LordofThunder]

I was actually thinking of the RP value to it. One of my mainland not-sailing characters is pursuing that runic circle fixture found in pirate chests just for the flavour of it. It looks cool.

Chances of finding without sailing? None.

Would be nice to be able to find unique RP items like sailing does. I think that the parrot chalice falls under that category. Not everything is power creeping hehe.

[AstralUniverse]

This is a neat idea but I would only want it to count if you complete the dungeon solo. Anyone can get a more skilled player or a group of players to carry them. I am not impressed if someone finished red dragon island once with a group of 10 epic characters and I don't think any kind of perks should be that easy to get. If they can do it alone though that is impressive and deserves to be recognized by NPC's in the game world. I'm not sure how easy this would be to implement though and I can already imagine ways people might try to exploit it. There are probably better, less anti-social systems the devs could be working on.

Being familiar with the 'spirit' of the server, I dont think we're looking to further incentivize solo gameplay. There are runic dungeons that nearly any functional build can solo, except possibly nich low ac builds with hit-run gameplay. You dont need to bring 10 epic characters to carry you. However, the very notion of having to essemble a party and roleplay and interact with people, isnt really a bad thing either. Currently, bringing any number of people with you just puts them on cooldown as well but the loot remains the same and I think it's safe to say we can all agree it does not, and never have, incentivized roleplay, interaction, inclusivity, since subsequently, when people are on cooldown they will generally avoid screwing their party by joining the adventure, and it's the nice thing to do.

And for the record, people do very often, when they simply want to help someone else, and forfit their cut, will just leave the party and lens out and go elsewhere entirely before the shrine is open. I dont know what the rules say about this but if they forfit their cut I personally dont see an issue. It does mean, however, that getting people to carry you without consequences for those people, is already something that happens as is.

If you have a better idea, by all means.

[Peacewhisper]

Being familiar with the 'spirit' of the server, I dont think we're looking to further incentivize solo gameplay. There are runic dungeons that nearly any functional build can solo, except possibly nich low ac builds with hit-run gameplay. You dont need to bring 10 epic characters to carry you. However, the very notion of having to essemble a party and roleplay and interact with people, isnt really a bad thing either. Currently, bringing any number of people with you just puts them on cooldown as well but the loot remains the same and I think it's safe to say we can all agree it does not, and never have, incentivized roleplay, interaction, inclusivity, since subsequently, when people are on cooldown they will generally avoid screwing their party by joining the adventure, and it's the nice thing to do.

And for the record, people do very often, when they simply want to help someone else, and forfit their cut, will just leave the party and lens out and go elsewhere entirely before the shrine is open. I dont know what the rules say about this but if they forfit their cut I personally dont see an issue. It does mean, however, that getting people to carry you without consequences for those people, is already something that happens as is.

If you have a better idea, by all means.

Yeah that's an important caveat that I acknowledged. While I might personally be a power gamer and enjoy seeing if I can solo X epic dungeon in 5 minutes or less, I know that's not what this server is designed around and devs probably have better things to work on. I'm pretty sure helping with a runic dungeon and then leaving the party before the chest is opened is a reportable exploit. So people probably shouldn't be doing that even if they think they're just being nice.

[Xersaoth]

I only want to see more unique less accessible dungeons, preferably with an ever-increasing difficulty and the grind!

[Kythana]

It's important to realize why we're chasing runes in the first place:

• if it's for personal use, then making the coin and simply buying one is likely the faster/more comfy way if luck isn't on our side
• if it's just to sell, then there's faster and more consistent ways of generating gp

Yes, I think most experienced players realize that the optimal way to play is do whatever task generates the most gold, and purchase the rest.

The point here is that runic dungeons, as they exist currently, do not appropriately award time investment for how an average, and especially newer player tackles them.

Their design seems consistent with older MMORPG philosophy where a lot of the best equipment was gated behind RNG drops. Today, you're more likely to see some sort of token system which allows a guaranteed reward, in time.

Personally, I don't see what the problem is in making runes more accessible to the general player base.

I also wouldn't pay much attention to shop flexing. Thing to realize here is that most of the shops have an entire faction behind them or their owner simply bought half the merch off lucky upstart adventurers with the intent to resell them for profit.

It's not about shop flexing. It's about seeing a consistent trend in certain themed shops, and what they're selling. The shops that are almost always selling big ticket items that go for hundreds of thousand, if not millions of gold, are sailing shops.

I would rather see more Roleplay oriented rewards than Monetary ones, if there's any choice in the matter.

Providing more tangible rewards encourages more roleplay though. That's part of the point here.

In their current state, runic dungeons encourage degenerate solo gameplay where you go alone, every time you're off cooldown. If you see another person ahead of you in a runic dungeon, it's better to just leave, and go to another one.

If runics actually scaled to a 3-5 man group, you'd be encouraged to bring friends along, and roleplay. And that is its own reward, instead of needing to come up with some gamified mechanic.

[Edens_Fall]

Turn them all into writs, once a day (19h) timer just like writs. Come back, turn it in, get a runic roll. No more weird “you can’t come” or people wasting their time because someone was there too recently with no way to tell. Then you can adjust % based on difficulty or popularity

I still don’t think it competes with sailing though.

I rather like this idea.