[CuteRedCrab]

My main gripe with LEs is the fact that it just feels jarring to do. I have a job and that hinders my ability to be on the game as much as I used to. If I could pay for inks, I would, but if that's not an option, I would at least want it to be more fun. I don't want to spend the very limited amount of time during the weekdays that I do have to do some- what feels like to me- soulless grinding. I feel like if it weren't as soulless, we'd actually have the energy to spend more time on it.

[polly]

I don't think there's any benefits you gain by making inks purchasable. You are not gaining an exclusive benefit that nobody else can get otherwise. It's merely a fee you pay for convenience and convenience alone. It saves you time. A F2P player can still simply just dedicate the time to grind either the levels properly to LE, or the Murai to buy the Patrions/Asago necessary to get the inks.

Even though there's few things I can agree on with Gale, he's spot on that level grinding in general is atrocious. It's several hours, made exponentially worse if you dare stick to your IC in the "roleplay mandatory" game. Otherwise? You better just put on a hood + maybe use an orb of mystery or hope that you don't end up getting roleplayed as while your uh... Knight who simply sucks at utilizing focus is now masterfully casting aquamancy to grind Lava Lake. Because using their default build makes grinding last almost twice as much time.

You're not buying levels, you're not buying items that define builds, you're purchasing something you can get with a time sink. You are simply removing that time sink; Which is... you know. Convenient to people who work long hours and want to actually roleplay instead of spend what little free time they have grinding. There is no roleplay you can get out of dungeon grinding apart from like... *gets hit* "oh ouch that hurt" "r u ok" "yes am" *kills* "ha take that"

I think you're all exaggerating an issue. If the Legend Inks were something exclusive you could purchase with no alternative? Absolutely unacceptable. That is an insane advantage that you can only obtain by getting money.
I don't think any person who cannot pay would begin excessively sobbing over not having the money to buy legend inks. I think most people would appreciate the fact that you can, of course, just dedicate the time (if you have it) to grind it out.

No real mechanical advantage is gained through this, you simply get to spare yourself 3-5 hours.

Either way. Purchasable "get all shards" would be nice. I would enjoy purchasable Legend Inks myself, even though I doubt I'll have the funds to consistently buy them when I need 'em.
As long as you get no exclusive advantages for purchasing them, I fail to see the problem.

[Karidan]

I don't have particularly strong feelings towards this one way or the other, but I did have some thoughts.

I have more interest in RPing than min-maxing my build (I don't even wait until I'm 60 to get to RPing most of the time, much less doing LE's and I usually like to hit dungeons as part of it) but I do think that the shards were a sort of decaying idea since the boosts they give are pretty substantial mechanically. There are some pretty simple solutions that don't stretch into the realm of paid donations.

Adding something as simple as an option to use all of the excess cypelle we get to buy shards we're missing is a way that kills two birds with one stone. You're already gonna have a ton of it from doing the regular grind, so people have the option to either go looking for the rocks if they're new, or just pick them up with cypellel if they're not.

More synergies that give EXP bonuses would be pretty cool too. I know we get the % bonuses from doing certain things in combat, maybe that could be expanded on to incentivize people to try doing specific things that isn't hitting the LB button and throwing up youtube on the side while they go.

Food for thought on some potential solutions. I know some folks don't have a lot of time and some are averse to doing things before they hit 60, and it does create a bit of a vortex problem when making new characters when you've been at it for a couple of years.

[Sawrock]

As Blissey has stated prior, having a mechanic along the line of buying legend inks (such as aves) is a mistake that was done in Sigrogana Legend 1. It overall led to the stagnation of the game and lack of new players incoming. Although you can say to just spend more time to get the same results, when your justification for wanting to skip the grind (being a high cost, I don’t have enough time, etc) is used to handwave the significance of any benefits that are gained by being able to purchase inks (low cost, people can just get it anyways) shows a lack of perspective for those who would not have the option to spend in the first place.

[polly]

I'd also like to point out that while purchasing Legend Inks and Shards hold no direct benefit, we still have an item that gives a [i]direct[/ii] advantage over non paying players.

The Science Kit.

The dismantling the Science Kit provides is a direct advantage over free to play players, since normally you can only go to a very specific part of the map, only at specific hours to do so. Otherwise? You need the Science Kit.

If that's fine, I fail to see how purchasing Legend Inks and the Shards are such a massive, overwhelming advantage.
We could also simply just put "limitations" on both of them.

You can only use the Gain All Shards item if you have a character with all shards collected on the same key.
You can only purchase Legend Inks if you have already obtained every stat increasing Legend Extension upgrade.

Now you're not getting any stats by purchasing. Any better?

---

I realized I am blatantly wrong.
Fuck.
Ignore the first part! Teehee.

[Sawrock]

That would be a considerable alternative. I would also be okay if Science Kits were removed if the overall consensus was that they did provide a significant benefit, but on characters I don’t have a kit on I just bank my items until I’m ready to do them all at once when needed.

[Ray2064]

The author of this thread is a fraud

[Frozen]

People want to cut through the grind with paid items because the grind is exactly that: a grind! I'd say not to even bother making things like that a paid feature. Make getting to level 60 fun!

Barring that, there are a few ideas I've seen in here that could help the original issue. Making the shards shared over the entire key rather than the single character could do it. Alternatively, spending Cypelle to get the remainder of the shards you can't find or can't be bothered to get is a good way of adding a new Cypelle sink.

[JamOfBoy]

If people are desperate enough that they'd sooner pay money than collect the shards manually, maybe this speaks to an issue with the shards themselves? One that should be rectified in a way that is accessible to every player rather than offered as a convenience to those willing to line the developer's pockets?

Maybe we should address the issues with the unholy grind in the game directly, rather than letting people bypass it with money?

[Trexmaster]

I feel like I should point toward a few threads I've already made not only pertaining directly to the matter of shard gathering, but also that of the grind itself.

On grinding:

Thread 1: here  (since this thread we at least got extra mob spawns in the 1-60 dungeons and dark amplifier but that introduced problems of its own that I addressed in thread 2)
Thread 2: here

On shard gathering:

Thread 1: here (request for a crystal terminal upgrade to allow players to view their shard count per zone to make collecting them far easier, as they'll know which areas to look in)
Thread 2: here (request to allow players to toggle visibility of already gathered shards so party leaders can help party members who haven't gathered all shards)

I am of the mind that we should not be encouraging purposeful inconvenience for the sake of monetary gain. A terminal upgrade seems more than fair to me as players will have to invest cypelle or whatever into what is purely a convenience for those who want it as opposed to paying to skip the task altogether.

As for the grind, well. I like to think my recent thread (grinding Thread 2) covers the current issues with it well enough.