I've been thinking about this quite a bit. And I know it's going to be met with a ton of skepticism, but here it is:
The treasure system of Thay rewards soloing over party cooperation, and by extension, power building.
There. I said it.
How you ask? Everything, especially the forge, is RIDICULOUSLY expensive. Gold is an imperative. Also, Thay is incredibly hard. That difficulty demands you forge your gear to the maximum it can be for your level, each level, to survive. That's thousands.... hundreds of thousands... every single level change. If you have a henchman? Even more so to equip them.
So that means constantly working dungeons to acquire said gold. But, the way the treasure system is, I can get in a party of two or three, and earn a third, or solo it, and earn 100%. Not just that, I can solo faster, sell faster, and be back in a dungeon quicker, increasing my gold earning even more.
Is it boring? Sure. But the other option is dying all the time since my gear sucks. My play times are super weird. Because of my CRAZY job, wife, kids, etc... I may log in and have only 20 minutes. I may log in and have 2 hours. Often I don't know when I log in how much time I'll have. So in that time I need to maximize it for gold.... And I don't like flaking on people in the middle of things. It always makes me feel bad, so I end up soloing about 70% of my time. The solutions below would encourage me to seek out more cooperation even in my odd and limited play times.
I've seen this solution implemented on many other servers, and it makes sense. Have the containers for treasure give EACH member of the party treasure. So party of two, the first walks up grabs his treasure and it's empty for him. The second walks up, opens the chest and it has treasure for them, and etc. not a bottomless pit, it only makes treasure for each member of the party, and only once, and it's totally random for each party member. Could be 6 gold coins for one, and the "awesome mage staff of awesomeness" for another. If someone is soloing, it only makes treasure the one time.
Secondly, have the stores run out of gold on a purely individual basis. So each person, independent of party, can sell their allotment of treasure to stores. It is unbelievably annoying to be working a dungeon only to be unable to sell because someone else came through and ran everyone out of gold. I don't mind the cap of 4k per store or whatever it is, just make that 4k available to everyone.
I can practically hear the scoffing. I get it, it's a little out there. But if you want to truly encourage party play, this is the way to do it. It will totally reward cooperation, as it absolutely should.
I've been thinking about this quite a bit. And I know it's going to be met with a ton of skepticism, but here it is:
The treasure system of Thay rewards soloing over party cooperation, and by extension, power building.
There. I said it.
How you ask? Everything, especially the forge, is RIDICULOUSLY expensive. Gold is an imperative. Also, Thay is incredibly hard. That difficulty demands you forge your gear to the maximum it can be for your level, each level, to survive. That's thousands.... hundreds of thousands... every single level change. If you have a henchman? Even more so to equip them.
So that means constantly working dungeons to acquire said gold. But, the way the treasure system is, I can get in a party of two or three, and earn a third, or solo it, and earn 100%. Not just that, I can solo faster, sell faster, and be back in a dungeon quicker, increasing my gold earning even more.
Is it boring? Sure. But the other option is dying all the time since my gear sucks. My play times are super weird. Because of my CRAZY job, wife, kids, etc... I may log in and have only 20 minutes. I may log in and have 2 hours. Often I don't know when I log in how much time I'll have. So in that time I need to maximize it for gold.... And I don't like flaking on people in the middle of things. It always makes me feel bad, so I end up soloing about 70% of my time. The solutions below would encourage me to seek out more cooperation even in my odd and limited play times.
I've seen this solution implemented on many other servers, and it makes sense. Have the containers for treasure give EACH member of the party treasure. So party of two, the first walks up grabs his treasure and it's empty for him. The second walks up, opens the chest and it has treasure for them, and etc. not a bottomless pit, it only makes treasure for each member of the party, and only once, and it's totally random for each party member. Could be 6 gold coins for one, and the "awesome mage staff of awesomeness" for another. If someone is soloing, it only makes treasure the one time.
Secondly, have the stores run out of gold on a purely individual basis. So each person, independent of party, can sell their allotment of treasure to stores. It is unbelievably annoying to be working a dungeon only to be unable to sell because someone else came through and ran everyone out of gold. I don't mind the cap of 4k per store or whatever it is, just make that 4k available to everyone.
I can practically hear the scoffing. I get it, it's a little out there. But if you want to truly encourage party play, this is the way to do it. It will totally reward cooperation, as it absolutely should.