Hey there, fellow Lokans!
I want to suggest a balance to Kalros' resource island, and what better time to talk about economy changes than with the upcoming update of Conquest 3?
When the resource islands rolled out, the had the intention of allowing new players the chance to gather ores and other materials rather easily, seeing as how this world of Loka is relatively old, and most of the ores on the main continents are pretty drained out from years of strip mining. I mean, did you see Nokia? The man was rich because strip mining is basically all he did! Regardless, it was also meant to help older towns keep up the changes to territory costs, as they were incrementally getting harder to pay, just off of the mainland's resources.
Now, when the resource islands first came out, I think we can all agree (at least, of those that actually utilized them in those early days), they were a bit over-powered. I personally remember being able to get 4 to 6 stacks of diamonds just from an hour on the Kalros RI, and from some of the things I've heard over the past couple of months, that was a pretty low range. I believe there were some people who were able to get well over a full stack of diamond blocks a day just from Kalros! I'm sure this applied to the other islands as well, but I digress.
Now, as much as I'd love for the Resource Islands to go back to that state, I do understand that it was quite game breaking, and a town would be able to feed their tgen for months, if they spent an hour on these islands. When adjustments were made, Crypt accidentally doubled the amount of resources first, and then, after he realized his mistakes, he cut the resources by 4 (essentially half of what they originally were). If changes have taken place since then, I don't know, but I'm sure someone might tell me otherwise.
When these balance changes first came around, however, I seemed to realize that they only really affected diamonds, and maybe emeralds too. So, I tried my luck at Garama, and oh god the amount of gold there blew me away...See, I don't think the amount of gold ever got changed on Garama, or maybe it did, but it's still relatively abundant. Honestly, I don't see that as a bad thing! Gold isn't exactly the most valuable thing in the world, only coming to 4 shards per ingot, plus it's not something you can use a fortune pick on, but it's still worthwhile spending your time there to get shards for your town, ancient ingots, ender pearls, or what have you.
Admittedly, I've spent quite some time on the Garama Resource Island, ever since these changes, since I felt that Kalros just couldn't sustain my needs much anymore. I usually averaged out on about 12 stacks of gold, which would equal about 3 stacks of diamonds. Now, I've heard people who can fill up an entire shulker of gold (and all the praise to them), but gold isn't the only abundant source on Garama: here, I've also found an extremely good source of Lapis Lazuli, Iron, and Coal. I'd say, as an average, I can knock out about a stack of Lapis Lazuli Blocks (with fortune III, obviously), up to maybe 3 stacks of blocks, along with an unreasonable amount of iron and coal. Now, I know Iron and Coal is supposed to be abundant in Kalros, but I'd say the amount in the North is negligible compared to that of the South. Furthermore, iron isn't exactly valuable (2 ingots to 1 shard), and coal can't be sold (to the ore exchanger), so if anything, I don't really see a problem here, but is something to bring to the spotlight.
Now, let's discuss the value of an emerald, seeing as how Kalros is the only place that you can mine emeralds it seems (Disclaimer: I've not been to the Ascalon Resource Isle, so I don't actually know. However, based off of what I know of each continents basic resources, I'm going to assume it's Kalros only). If emeralds are the sole reason I should mine in Kalros, I'd say, honestly, it's not really worth it. In the ore exchange, emeralds are worth 8 power shards. In the last mining trip I recently took, I only received a stack and a half of emeralds (97 emeralds to be exact, which is one stack, and 33 emeralds). Now, if we're comparing that to what I might be able to average in Gold from Garama, keeping in mind that, in worth of power shards, 2 gold (2 gold * 4 power shards = 8 power shards) is equivalent to 1 emerald (1 emerald * 8 power shards = 8 power shards). Again, assuming I spend the same time on Garama as I spent on Kalros, I can make about 3072 shards in gold on average compared to the 776 shards I would've just made in emeralds. Something seems...off here. And that's just the baseline of emeralds and gold. Now factor in the Lapis I would have made on Garama (which would've totaled up my trip to about 5k shards) along with any diamonds I might've mined, compared to the Lapis I mined (26 blocks + 1 dust) and diamonds (62) I mined on Kalros which would've net me roughly 1600 shards. Kinda a large difference between 5k and 1600 shards, for roughly the same amount of time.
Now, there are obvious issues to my experiment, plenty which I plan to test over the coming days: first off, I have no way of knowing how much time I spent on both islands. Although I might say they were roughly equivalent, I didn't time myself, so what I might think was 1 hour on Kalros, might only have been 30 minutes. Furthermore, as any good scientist would know, I have a greater sample size of data from Garama, whereas I only have one data point from Kalros. Therefore, my data from Garama would be more accurate as an "average", whereas I can only draw reactionary conclusions to my time at the Kalros Resource Island. Other things I had to consider is any errors that came about in my time at the Kalros island, the glaring one being that other players could've been present in the island before I was. Sure, it's certainly possible, and I did take mental note of the cobblestone pathways that helped guide me over the large lava lakes, however, I did also brush this conclusion aside as most of these paths lead to small patches of ore that weren't mined. Unless the person before me wasn't looking to get diamonds and emeralds that were clearly in their path, I'd say I could safely debunk this theory.
Also, just because it should be mentioned, Kalros also has redstone, which Garama doesn't. However, redstone is one of those things you can only have so much of before it kinda becomes useless. Auru has two double chests of redstone blocks...what do I really need to mine anymore for?
Finally, does this mean I think we should nerf Garama and Ascalon to compensate for Kalros' seeming lack of resources? Absolutely not: with the average population of Loka steadily growing, I think reducing these outlets of income, where there really doesn't seem to be any other good sources of income that is built into the server now, would only put a further strain on Loka's economy, which might be difficult enough for some towns to keep up with. I think, if anything, Kalros needs a buff. Furthermore, I've heard this several times in the past, when compared to the other resource islands, Kalros supposedly has "higher difficulty". This can mainly be attributed to the packed ice, as it's slippery, and you can easily end up in the lava while trying to mine. It also makes the parkour over the lava pretty difficult, and I speak from personal experience. Therefore, if we want to mention the risk versus reward of the islands, Kalros has a high risk, but relatively low reward (at least, to my recent mining trip there). I've heard the same kind of sentiment from many other players, but most of them resort to just mining in Ascalon and Garama for this reason...
Anyways, let this thread be a discussion for how we should balance Kalros resource island, or even the economy as a whole! Keep the discussion clean and constructive, ya hear? And, in the famous words of Cryptite, go forth!
I want to suggest a balance to Kalros' resource island, and what better time to talk about economy changes than with the upcoming update of Conquest 3?
When the resource islands rolled out, the had the intention of allowing new players the chance to gather ores and other materials rather easily, seeing as how this world of Loka is relatively old, and most of the ores on the main continents are pretty drained out from years of strip mining. I mean, did you see Nokia? The man was rich because strip mining is basically all he did! Regardless, it was also meant to help older towns keep up the changes to territory costs, as they were incrementally getting harder to pay, just off of the mainland's resources.
Now, when the resource islands first came out, I think we can all agree (at least, of those that actually utilized them in those early days), they were a bit over-powered. I personally remember being able to get 4 to 6 stacks of diamonds just from an hour on the Kalros RI, and from some of the things I've heard over the past couple of months, that was a pretty low range. I believe there were some people who were able to get well over a full stack of diamond blocks a day just from Kalros! I'm sure this applied to the other islands as well, but I digress.
Now, as much as I'd love for the Resource Islands to go back to that state, I do understand that it was quite game breaking, and a town would be able to feed their tgen for months, if they spent an hour on these islands. When adjustments were made, Crypt accidentally doubled the amount of resources first, and then, after he realized his mistakes, he cut the resources by 4 (essentially half of what they originally were). If changes have taken place since then, I don't know, but I'm sure someone might tell me otherwise.
When these balance changes first came around, however, I seemed to realize that they only really affected diamonds, and maybe emeralds too. So, I tried my luck at Garama, and oh god the amount of gold there blew me away...See, I don't think the amount of gold ever got changed on Garama, or maybe it did, but it's still relatively abundant. Honestly, I don't see that as a bad thing! Gold isn't exactly the most valuable thing in the world, only coming to 4 shards per ingot, plus it's not something you can use a fortune pick on, but it's still worthwhile spending your time there to get shards for your town, ancient ingots, ender pearls, or what have you.
Admittedly, I've spent quite some time on the Garama Resource Island, ever since these changes, since I felt that Kalros just couldn't sustain my needs much anymore. I usually averaged out on about 12 stacks of gold, which would equal about 3 stacks of diamonds. Now, I've heard people who can fill up an entire shulker of gold (and all the praise to them), but gold isn't the only abundant source on Garama: here, I've also found an extremely good source of Lapis Lazuli, Iron, and Coal. I'd say, as an average, I can knock out about a stack of Lapis Lazuli Blocks (with fortune III, obviously), up to maybe 3 stacks of blocks, along with an unreasonable amount of iron and coal. Now, I know Iron and Coal is supposed to be abundant in Kalros, but I'd say the amount in the North is negligible compared to that of the South. Furthermore, iron isn't exactly valuable (2 ingots to 1 shard), and coal can't be sold (to the ore exchanger), so if anything, I don't really see a problem here, but is something to bring to the spotlight.
Now, let's discuss the value of an emerald, seeing as how Kalros is the only place that you can mine emeralds it seems (Disclaimer: I've not been to the Ascalon Resource Isle, so I don't actually know. However, based off of what I know of each continents basic resources, I'm going to assume it's Kalros only). If emeralds are the sole reason I should mine in Kalros, I'd say, honestly, it's not really worth it. In the ore exchange, emeralds are worth 8 power shards. In the last mining trip I recently took, I only received a stack and a half of emeralds (97 emeralds to be exact, which is one stack, and 33 emeralds). Now, if we're comparing that to what I might be able to average in Gold from Garama, keeping in mind that, in worth of power shards, 2 gold (2 gold * 4 power shards = 8 power shards) is equivalent to 1 emerald (1 emerald * 8 power shards = 8 power shards). Again, assuming I spend the same time on Garama as I spent on Kalros, I can make about 3072 shards in gold on average compared to the 776 shards I would've just made in emeralds. Something seems...off here. And that's just the baseline of emeralds and gold. Now factor in the Lapis I would have made on Garama (which would've totaled up my trip to about 5k shards) along with any diamonds I might've mined, compared to the Lapis I mined (26 blocks + 1 dust) and diamonds (62) I mined on Kalros which would've net me roughly 1600 shards. Kinda a large difference between 5k and 1600 shards, for roughly the same amount of time.
Now, there are obvious issues to my experiment, plenty which I plan to test over the coming days: first off, I have no way of knowing how much time I spent on both islands. Although I might say they were roughly equivalent, I didn't time myself, so what I might think was 1 hour on Kalros, might only have been 30 minutes. Furthermore, as any good scientist would know, I have a greater sample size of data from Garama, whereas I only have one data point from Kalros. Therefore, my data from Garama would be more accurate as an "average", whereas I can only draw reactionary conclusions to my time at the Kalros Resource Island. Other things I had to consider is any errors that came about in my time at the Kalros island, the glaring one being that other players could've been present in the island before I was. Sure, it's certainly possible, and I did take mental note of the cobblestone pathways that helped guide me over the large lava lakes, however, I did also brush this conclusion aside as most of these paths lead to small patches of ore that weren't mined. Unless the person before me wasn't looking to get diamonds and emeralds that were clearly in their path, I'd say I could safely debunk this theory.
Also, just because it should be mentioned, Kalros also has redstone, which Garama doesn't. However, redstone is one of those things you can only have so much of before it kinda becomes useless. Auru has two double chests of redstone blocks...what do I really need to mine anymore for?
Finally, does this mean I think we should nerf Garama and Ascalon to compensate for Kalros' seeming lack of resources? Absolutely not: with the average population of Loka steadily growing, I think reducing these outlets of income, where there really doesn't seem to be any other good sources of income that is built into the server now, would only put a further strain on Loka's economy, which might be difficult enough for some towns to keep up with. I think, if anything, Kalros needs a buff. Furthermore, I've heard this several times in the past, when compared to the other resource islands, Kalros supposedly has "higher difficulty". This can mainly be attributed to the packed ice, as it's slippery, and you can easily end up in the lava while trying to mine. It also makes the parkour over the lava pretty difficult, and I speak from personal experience. Therefore, if we want to mention the risk versus reward of the islands, Kalros has a high risk, but relatively low reward (at least, to my recent mining trip there). I've heard the same kind of sentiment from many other players, but most of them resort to just mining in Ascalon and Garama for this reason...
Anyways, let this thread be a discussion for how we should balance Kalros resource island, or even the economy as a whole! Keep the discussion clean and constructive, ya hear? And, in the famous words of Cryptite, go forth!
