Bik pages

[sweet meteor]

So, I'll admit in the grand scheme of things, bik pages are likely low on the priority list.

However, I still believe that they are an issue. While the gp from getting one is a very nice boost to a Croesus hour, the ability to upkeep the pages is very difficult to sustain. Croesus is the only boss of Gwd2 that still suffers from this as all of the others have a viable way of farming pages. While I believe that the Bik book is likely the most OP of them, the lack of sustainability is troubling for those that would like to utilize the book without shelling out an arm and a leg for pages that cost nearly 9m each at the time of post (I.E. your average player, not the clue chasers)

My idea is to create a 5 minute untradeable page that is given per player that reaches the 420 total score. In a 4 man team at 9 kills per hour, this equals 1 page per hour of Croesus.
If you were to mess up during the kill and not get the required score of 420, you would lose the page drop (this would prevent players from farming kills in masses)

[eternal roost]

your "average" player shouldn't even use the book, the pages are priced according to the average profit of the average amount of clues you'd get from the duration of a page

[swift turret]

Solution to Croesus replayability is a better match making system

Or making it soloable

Having a new unique item isn’t a viable solution

[violet drum]

I agree with the problem but disagree with the solution - I think it makes sense to increase drop rate of pages substantially, whether that's just increasing the rate to maybe even 1/kill, or introducing a solak-esque 'cluster' drop.

Given the benefit of the 5% xp buff from a catalyst happening, it really doesn't make sense to limit the usability to a tiny class of players who aren't using the item for xp purposes.

[eternal roost]

I don't think it should just be a freebie 5% xp, the price of pages does make it a buff only a select few use for the xp buff, too few imo

i think ideally you as a player choose to invest in having the xp buff knowing you need to do the clues you get from the catalysts to recoup your costs, but that's not what its being used for and that indicates to me the xp buff needs to be higher

what's the number that turns it from the "get clues" book to the "investment xp buff" book, 5% is clearly too low to hit that point

obviously there's a risk of overtuning, but i think that'd be better than the sorry state the book is in right now for the purposes mentioned above and if the price of pages skyrockets because of the xp buff getting increased, THEN we can look at drop rates, but understanding why and how people use something and making direct changes should be prioritised over just "bandaid" drop rate increases

I doubt a drop rate increase on its own would make pages cheaper anyhow, the price will always settle at whatever is the average profit of the average amount of clues you'd get from the duration of a page, the key thing you're doing by increasing the drop rate is increasing supply, which might be necessary if you're upping demand with a buff

[violet drum]

but the solution of changing the xp buff is no less bandaid-y than changing the drop rate. There is clearly going to be a price at which a 5% xp buff is considered worth it taken in isolation; and given xp rates across the board are already substantially too high, any xp increases as a balancing mechanism should be ruled out automatically

this is before we consider that obtaining clues is not the fun part of doing clue scrolls, and the existence of the book in itself is addressing an existing problem

increasing the rate at which clue scrolls are introduced into the game should be seen as unambiguously good; it doesn't meaningfully change the rate at which clue scroll uniques are introduced into the game, and it grants people greater access to clue content when they are hitting clue caps regularly

[eternal roost]

i don't think it should be ruled out, we just need to find the number where the worthwhile price of x% xp buff matches the current price of pages

i think you bring up a good point about obtaining clues, but if the problem is clue supply creating even more of a reliance on the book doesn't seem like the way to go, other sources of clues is what should be propped up, that might even lessen demand for pages and therefore make the xp buff as is more accessible

i didn't feel like clue caps were relevant but given the book is one of the few ways to bypass the cap, it really makes the methods of obtaining clues that don't seem that much more awful, i'd want to see the caps removed

[violet drum]

yeah I definitely agree that the book plays too major a role in the clue-obtaining meta

my radical idea is that content which exists basically as a clue dispenser is essentially a good idea

[sweet meteor]

Yeah. I've seen a lot of pushback on increasing the drop rate from people that say that it would effect the price of the pages (obviously they're not aware of "the average profit of the average amount of clues you'd get from the duration of a page" as you mentioned). This was just an idea I had as an option. Apparently people don't like it (which is fair) but there is an issue with the sustainability of pages.

[violet drum]

aye. I think insofar as it remains a croesus unique there's no big deal

[sweet meteor]

I just want them to be more self-sustainable. I figured that a more consistent way of getting pages (albeit minimal) would be more acceptable to people than doing a Solak-like page/kill (I've proposed that before and got even worse reactions than this)

[swift turret]

I mean are people even doing Croesus? Haven’t checked in on the Croesus fc in a while but mass world is dead