The same patch we are now is vanilla T3 honing rates, with some differences. The biggest difference, and the most game breaking one IMO, is the ilvl to access Argos and Nightfox to be able to farm out decent T3 abyss and guardians is much, much higher.
In party finder, in the same game as it was now, you could access these things at 1345. This meant we could get our 1340 gear earlier on our main, and we could viably have alts that actually farmed T3 and not half T2.
From 1340-1370 (which is a long time for most people) your abyss is half T2, T2 gives you no relevant materials, and only a couple of rolls on T2 accessories that smart people will never buy, also 100g per dungeon. That means from 1340-1370, we are making 500 less gold from abyss per week, per character, as well as missing out on ~112 Great Honour Leapstones per character.
The raw silver cost alone will timegate and stop people from honing alts to 1370. I am aware there is research, but, to progress an alt to 1370, it is ~5mil silver. Rounding out to 100g per hone (as it starts at 70 and goes up to 120) it also costs ~9k gold. I don’t know anyone that makes 9k gold and 5mil silver in excess. This means your main has to stand still, or you are sinking and going negative. Just to have one alternate character that can properly farm out T3.
Now, there’s 2 reasons to do this:
- You want people to spend money to progress
- You don’t like carries, and think it is unhealthy
I would hope that the progression is not P2W, as AGS+SG have assured us they never want it to feel that way, so let’s address the 2nd point.
Carries are good for the game.
Carries allow F2P and people with slower progression to have a guaranteed clear of things despite their resource. A carry will never cost so much that it wouldn’t be worth it, if you don’t want to be carried, then you can choose not to be.
They give those on top a way to use their power. They can lead a party where they can swing around their big weapons and look cool, doing fat DPS % while they make a little extra gold doing it.
Having the party finder ilvl reduced for the, what I would say, is required content to operate through T3 with a steady progression, only helps the game.
Carries are a great thing. They are only good to all players. Please consider addressing the deadzone between 1340-1370 by carefully readjusting the minimum ilvl for now. I believe the track of T3 alt progression F2P is much too harsh, and I believe everyone would benefit from such a change. Lost Ark’s player retention and new players, the players on top, and everyone trying to get alts farming out T3 properly so we can slowly progress to 1415.
Thank you for reading.