Ever since the quest item/reactor drop change (I believe this is when it was), APQ has been giving roughly 2x the amount of apples that it used to. This fact really shouldn't be up for debate - I don't apq much, but pre-change the rates were probably ~6 apples per character, and since the change nearly everyone I've talked to is getting 10+. I've (informally) talked with some staff and other players about it and have heard that it's not a bug and APQ rates are fine. This is not solely due to fixed APQ spawns - it's far too drastic of a change for that to really matter, seeing as even before that most boxes were still getting cleared. This is very clearly the driving force behind the massive decline in apple prices, having gone from 10-10.5m/apple before the change, to 7-8m/apple now, which I suspect will continue to decline a bit more in the future. One might say that cheaper apples is good for the economy as it makes it cheaper to run bosses/content, which is true. However, apple prices have declined so far that, for any content >10 minutes (12.5 for NL I guess), it is mathematically better to use apples than to use stoppers or even enchanted peppermints, assuming 350k stopper and 2.5m peppermints Spoiler: Proof Assume gizers cost 1m/ea, peppermints 2.5m/ea, stoppers 350k/ea, and apples 7m/ea. Gizers last for 30 minutes and give 25 WA. Peppermints last for 20 minutes and give 35 WA Stoppers last for 1 minute and give 60 WA Apples last for 10 minutes and give 100 WA Therefore, to fill an hour of time you'd need 2 gizers, 3 peppermints, 60 stoppers, or 6 apples. This gives us an hourly cost of 2m, 7.5m, 21m, and 42m. Versus nothing, gizers are a 25 WA increase and cost 2m/hr more, for a cost of 80k/hr per WA gained Versus gizers, peppermints are a 10 WA increase and cost 5.5m/hr more, for a cost of 550k/hr per WA gained. Versus peppermints, stoppers are a 25 WA increase and cost 13.5m/hr more, for a cost of 540k/hr per WA gained (yes, cheaper than peppermints) Versus stoppers, apples are a 40 wa increase, and cost 21m/hr more, for a cost of 525k/hr per WA gained (yes, cheaper than stoppers OR peppermints) ... and at 30m/ea demon elixirs are like 4.5m/hr per WA gained. Don't use those unless you absolutely need to. Therefore, assuming you're running content longer than 10 stoppers, you should apple, because if it's worth paying the premium to stopper/peppermint, then the cost to move to apple is even less than what you paid to upgrade from gizer. If apples were 10m/ea again, they'd have a cost of 975k/hr per WA gained versus stoppers, making them significantly more expensive of an attack pot. This means that ultra cheap apples are killing the stopper and peppermint market (stoppers getting pushed down in price causes peppermints to also be worse). To save these markets and farming spots, I recommend bringing APQ rates back to around what they were before the buff. And then we'd have much more potion choices instead of "you can gizer, or you can apple. Everything else is pointless and not worth it", which would also be kind of nice to have.
Apples being cheap is good for everyone except apple hoarders. Saves time, money, useless drama on boss runs. The heartstopper analysis makes no sense. As stoppers are strictly lower +WA than apples people will not buy them if apples are cheaper, thus prices will fall. Fewer players will farm stoppers thereby, finding equilibrium. Also stoppers are incredibly annoying to use and I for one welcome our new onyx overlords.
I think the point is apples are already cheaper then stoppers (per w.att*min increase over gizer), and stopper prices are still not falling any lower. It's because some people don't realize apples are cheaper, and others (probably most) just use them anyway to pad out fight times under 10 minutes. It would probably be interesting to have multiple att pots to consider and optimize around. But in a world where bossing isn't even profitable, I think it's good that every content is apple content and apples are cheap to make bossing more attractive.
As one of the most experienced heartstopper farmers probably in this server it is what it is. Markets change and we have to eventually adapt. This would be a bigger issue if Rose garden didn’t exist for me. I just moved over to RGing on multiple characters. I still always make sure I have a few hundred stoppers available when needed for specific content (shao mainly), but I think the pros of cheaper apples outweigh the cons. Also, apples hit like 6m earlier a few months ago and have steadily recovered back into 7-7.5 territory which are good signs
As a farmer, seller and user of apples, I have been on the fence about this for some time but I recently changed my tune. Those who farm/sell apples probably won't see a difference either way because they're either selling fewer apples for more or selling more apples for less so it all (more or less) evens out in the end. The opinion of hoarders doesn't matter to me because their overall contribution to the market & bossing is null anyways. Users are slowly shifting away from other items towards apples, meaning a less cluttered inventory, cheaper bossing and more effective bossing. Which sounds good, but... If you take a step back and look at the whole picture, you'd realize apples were never really broken. Stoppers, on the other hand, have always felt like they needed to be reworked, either by fixing them or replacing them with another item altogether. I say this for 2 reasons: 1) Their usability is garbage. Seriously, the 1-minute duration make using them and managing your inventory an unnecessary headache. This alone was enough for me to just never see the appeal of them. 2) The way they are typically farmed is just flat-out ridiculous! Farming them normally doesn't produce a good meso/time ratio so people instead farm them by planting a mule with a summon and picking up the drops every 2.5 minutes. I've tried it and I can say that even this method isn't very profitable. Because it's so easy, the prices of stoppers have been on the decline the entire time I have been playing as they have flooded the market. I feel like stoppers should be reworked so that they can be farmed in a reasonable way and have a reasonable duration while still making the farming process somewhat as profitable as apple farming. The idea here being they should be put more in line with gizers, peppermints and apples so that players have a more reasonable choice to make. (i.e make them "fit" in more as per Sylafia's analysis) This makes far more sense than increasing the supply apples until people realize stoppers are useless.
The apq apple rates werent changed. the only apq change is everyone having a different spawn point thus more boxes are cleared (no 1 is fighting over boxes anymore) and more apples are gained. I personally hated the previous apq version due to drama caused. "(I hit this box first, move!)". I am really happy with this change and think it should persist. p.s playing a low mobility class (marksman) felt really bad in apq with mages and nightlords flying around clearing double or even triple of what I managed to reach. p.s.s do correct me if I'm wrong about the apple drop rates though. I didn't see anything about it in the patch itself, only spawn points.
Ill just mention this, at this point I dont really remember wich update changed the drop rates in this matter. So ill Just go from my POV. When I just started on this server doing apq was one of my dailies. For almost a year the normal rates where 8 to 10 appos , being 12 appos a really good day( wich is something that wasnt an unique occurance, on avrg every 2-4 days i witnessed someone in the pt getting 11-12 apples) back then appos were 10 up to 15m each. Next valentines event came and it was insane, 16-20 appos was the norm, but it seems like that wasnt intended( 2x drop rate instead of 50%) and got quickly patched, 14-16 apples was the new avrg after that emergency patch. When that event ended there was a new drop rate, it felt greatly reduced( i think that if you lurk on forums theres some threads of 2019 or 2020 mentioning this), personally after 5 days in a row of getting less than 6 appos per apq, i just dropped apq and theorized that they nerfed the base apple drop rate instead of the event buff. A year after that a friend of mine who used to do at least 4 chars of daily apq, confirmed me that the new avrg was 6 appos. All this story is just to tell, prices and amount of apples in the market might have multiple causes, Appo hoarders-Amount of ppl now vs then- new apq spawn system- More ppl farming n stuff/less ppl actually bossing(even less using apples while bossing), but witht everything apples drop rate wasnt buffed, just went back to normal.
The rate change is not in patch notes. Pretty APQ rates did change besides the spawn changes, for a couple reasons: Rates are roughly double now. If this is purely the work of spawn changes that would require players to be opening twice a many boxes. Were half the boxes being left unopened before? Because that sure didn't seem to be the case when I ran. From what I remember, the rate change happened in a different patch than the spawn change. I'm unsure how much the global 30% drop boost we've had on for months is affecting this, but it probably also plays a role. Good to see a stopper farmer's opinion on this. I'm glad RG is a good alternative. Huh, this happened before I started playing so I never knew they used to drop around this often.
BTW I wonder how many apples Mr.Claymore gets from APQ nowadays. After all, he has superior skills that guaranteed him average of 8-12 apples consistently prior to apq droprate buff. He must be raking in all those apples LOL
The point relating to 'unopened' APQ boxes is a bit more valid than you might think. I agree that players who formed consistent APQ parties prior to the spawn change probably cleared the entire map but the random pugs/pubs I joined often had multiple boxes left unopened because the routing/paths weren't as instructive. Since the rework I barely see unopened boxes whenever I run with randoms. That means there are a ton more apples floating around in the market then before the rework.
I won’t talk about the economy because I’m an idiot. But I think the positives outweigh the negatives if it means more people are enjoying group-based content. PQ content > farming content (stoppers) when it comes to server health. I would only really use a buff like Peppermints if I was going to start a long grind like clearing out a map of Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) or ToT bosses.
Thinking about things more, this does seem like a much better solution. Any ideas on what should be changed? I'm not all that opposed to summon farming so I won't comment on changing that. At least it's something different than bringing 4-8 mages to a map and spamming gene/blizz/meteors. The 1 min duration is quite annoying though, maybe 3 mins could be better? I don't want them super long as it's nice to have a shorter attack potion to fill out content not worth an apple/gelt/other longer pot, so I think it could strike a nice balance. And then probably let the market settle a bit and see prices/farming income before adjusting drop rates if necessary.
Wrong and invalid statements, like OP said, the rates should not be up for debate. The rates have been changed since Patch #86 with the addition of quest item changes. This thread can attest to the bonus boxes being changed, apples used to almost only drop at the beginning of the loot line, while after the update it would drop at the end often, and at a higher rate. Side note, the first 12 hours of the update the rates were even higher, some even getting up to 20 apples for the total 4 runs, which was swiftly nerfed to the current rates. This information was relayed to @Gert already, who can also attest to the change of rates, being a player that ran apq at that time. Any experienced apq grinders like @Bot or @Yingding could confirm this. The Amoria PQ bonus spawn position change came 1 month later in Patch #87, which had nothing to do with the change of apple prices, that're already dropped to 8m each prior to almost being 10m during anniversary event. One can also assume that staff already know this has been an ongoing "bug", this year's Valentine's event has clearly excluded the usual increased drop rates in the APQ bonus stage like prior year's. Get your facts right.
I can attest to that. The fact that not only was it buffed on base apple drops; it was also buffed with the event drop rates. You would usually see 9-12 apple average on event drop rates. So I would agree with this nerf apple drop rate. (Also revert back to random spawns I wanna see more apple drama uwu jk)
I think so because you would see someone smega about someone else stealing their apples or sometimes a blacklist here and there on forums. Not as often nowadays.
