Should red and blue witch belts be permanent?

With Halloween coming soon™, I want to bring up the topic of temporary items again. Here's all of the belts available in the game at this moment:



The purpose of this topic is to discuss whether it would be beneficial for the lowest two witch belts to become permanent.

Impact for low and mid-level characters
Due to the nature of the meta, the biggest impact in this character class is likely the possibility of extra INT for HP washing. With a cheap 100% INT Easter scroll, you can "chaos" the belt twice cheaply and get up to +11 INT on a belt (although due to the high dark coin cost of belts and belt scrolls, many may have to settle for 5-7 INT). The belts aren't tradable, so it would only aid in individuals' HP washing journey and not significantly impact the HP washing gear economy.

The other more minor impact is that mid level characters will have another slot to add secondary stats to in order to equip items while keeping their primary base high, and also have access to a bit of extra speed or jump. It's also nice having a slot filler that does more than pig belt's pitiful +1. (Yes, pig belt can be permanent, but only if dropped from the pigs in the Lv60-70 map- likely an oversight)

Impact for end-game players
Making these belts permanent would have no meaningful impact on endgame players, as even a below average VL belt or a reasonably scrolled black belt would outclass the witch belts. For those who don't need the HP from the black belt, however, it would enable the possibility of skipping dojo and just making do with a +5-7 stat witch belt until VL.

Would this change disincentivize dojo?
For some players, possibly. Surely those who are trying to play the unwashed route will still want to get black belt for the +500 hp, and those who loathe jump quests may find dojo grinding preferable to jumping. And of course because the belts are untradable anyone who makes a character after Halloween will likely dojo instead of waiting a year to get a belt since there's literally no other option until VL.

Would it be confusing if the first two belts were perma but the purple one is temp?
Maybe. In this case, an argument could be made for removing the watk/matk and making the purple one perma too. Either way the red text in malady's shop is pretty hard to miss so I doubt this would be an issue one way or the other.

Impact for Islanders
Okay, well, you know this is why I'm here. Halloween is a gambling fiesta for islanders, trying to get arbitrarily large witch hats and super speedy vroomsticks. Adding belts to the mix would provide another item to aim for, and jump and speed are conveniently some of the few stats islanders care about.

At level 30, an islander will usually have 12-17 jump from their maple cape and scrolled shoes. Adding in 10+ jump from the crimson belt would allow them to hit the cap without needing to put jump on their pet equip.

At level 55, most islanders will be able to reach the speed and jump cap (16 speed maplemas lights, 6/15 shoes, 5/2 maple cape, 5 speed from maple leaf, and an 8/6 pet equip). However, this locks them into using +speed weapons. Having 10+ speed on the ocean blue belt would potentially free them up to use other weapons- fruit knife for attack speed, surfboards or pumpkin spear for range, or just flexing the rare and stylish summer weapons.

Possible balancing options
If the impact of these belts is still deemed too high, one upgrade slot could be deducted to severely limit their impact versus dojo belts. They could alternatively be given a price increase in malady's shop, so that fewer players could scroll a 10+ stat result.

What would need to be changed?
Just the timeLimited property removed from the shop item, and the "90 day" text removed from malady's shop description.

In conclusion, why should the red and blue witch belts become permanent?
- Chaosing is fun, especially when the stakes are lower and you're not losing half a billion each failure
- Temporary items are almost always completely ignored unless they are very good and last almost all year (like anniversary silver/gold pendant)
- More choices in a slot that has so few items, especially for low-mid level characters, is nice
- Shouldn't detract from dojo any more than pilgrim hat detracts from zakum or snow fur lump detracts from gaching for pgc, because of the seasonal availability and untradable status

 

I think this would be good. Perhaps it would be better to make the witch belts 2 slots though, so that their maximum potential in stats isn't getting too close to black belt.

With 3 slots, it seems the max potential would be +8 on 2 stats? I.e. 30% for first stat -> 30% for second stat -> witch belt cs. I feel that a potential of +16 is a bit high.

 

The amount of arbitrary gatekeeping that happens for ultra end game items is kind of wonky. I.e. Most attack gears and auf haven hats

I like this idea because it provides more opportunities for mid level gear instead of an insane gap between what's next best. I understand the idea of meso sinks for end game players, but realistically end game is probably the most vocal minority and changes like these create small beneficial changes to the meta that aren't game changing and support mid level casual players.

 

Keep in mind, with the cheapest belt at 40 coins, you would expect to scroll 11 belts before landing both 30s. 440 coins means doing the jump quest 44 times (and burning around 10 scrolls worth maybe 10m each). Now to land the witch scroll, you have a 1/121 chance, which quickly makes the +8/+8 belt unaffordable in terms of time and meso. Even if you settle for +3/+3 witch roll instead of +5/+5, you'd still need about 13 attempts, which means you're jumping 572 times and burning 1.3B in scrolls.

You could of course do the same with with easter scrolls to get +6 on two stats, but that still would require on average 121 belts to hit that juicy +5/+5 witch roll.

Certainly someone could just get lucky, and good for them I suppose. But on average this will not be able to realistically compete without jumping on multiple mules for the entire event. (which is a huge opportunity cost considering the coins could be instead used to scroll high INT brooms for washing)

Edit: Does pierre drop dark coins? I can't remember. That might change the viability of this. I know coins drop from the occasional frog or black cat mob, but I remember that being a very slow method of gaining coins.

 

Admittedly I have never done the jump quest. How long does it take, and how many times allowed per day?

 

Every 6 hours, and iirc my average pace was around 3-4 minutes per clear but fastest can be done in 1-2

 

The staff have been making strides recently in refreshing the events to keep Royals fun and relevant, for which I truly appreciate.

These belts are often currently ignored because of their temporary nature, but the Purple Belt could be, and arguably should be, a best-in-slot item from level 85 until Von Leon.

I believe making all three of these belts permanent would be a great way to refresh and redefine the perimeters of the Halloween event, giving people a reason to return to the game and keep playing. If people return to the game to play then they are also more likely to donate to the server. As explained in the posts above, it benefits a wide variety of players. Dojo is there all of the time for players, but it makes sense to me that the best-in-slot before Von Leon should be rarer.

The Rudolph’s Shiny Nose set a precedent that it’s okay for some of the best in-slot items to be permanent untradeable event items, so I feel the Purple Belt should be permanent alongside the Red and Blue Belts. Just make it available once per character, per event, to match Rudolph’s Shiny Nose, and reduce the scroll slots or rebalance the stats and remove the scroll slots if staff think it too powerful.

Whether this change is implemented or not, I'd like to say thank you to the Royals staff for their continued effort to bring around new and interesting changes to put life into these events.

TLDR:

Great for event refresh!
Gets people returning to the game to play/spend money!
Purple Belt should be included, but limited to one per character like Rudolph’s Shiny Nose.

~Adaryn

 

The purple belt actually has a potential of 16 w.att clearing the VL belt's potential by a mile. I don't think it is any good for the game if such an item were to be exist permanently in the game.

 

I think this is easily resolved with a reduction of scroll slots. Especially if it is one per character per year maximum. In my opinion, it's more favourable to re-balance and make permanent than to remain temporary and largely ignored.

Regardless of what we choose to do about the purple belt, I think there's really no reason that the red and blue belts shouldn't be made permanent.

 

even if you reduced the slots to 1 available, it's still 6wa potential, which is still very hard to get on a vl belt. If you really insist on making the purple permanent too, it's gonna have to be either 0 slots or introduce another witch belt specific cs that only goes +-2 or less

 

I think having no slots is viable, like the 11th Anniversary Leaf, especially if you upped the weapon attack/magic attack slightly to bring it back into line with where it should be at level 85. The red/blue belts are probably fine as they are.

 

I didn't include the purple belt in the original post because I thought it would be too controversial of a change. But since we're discussing the options, here are my thoughts on the proposed solutions in order from least to most work to implement:

Keep it limited - The path of least resistance, the belt will continue to be mostly irrelevant except for the odd level 85-179 who is trying to get a slight boost for a few months.
Extend duration - Having the belt last longer would result in more people rolling the dice, as evidenced by the popularity of anniversary gold pendant. Still may feel a bit weird to have one belt limited when the other two are perma.
Perma (unchanged stats) - Obviously too good, it would be easy to roll 8 or more watk by the end of the event.
Perma (1 slot) - Still seems too powerful, it would be completely feasible to grind 10+ belts and land the 6watk, which for a level 85 item is a big power boost.
Perma (no slots) - This is a decent option because it's still easy to implement and provides a completely predictable impact. Even if the stats were unchanged I assume many players would pick this up as a slot filler. The downside is that with 0 slots, there's no fun to be had gambling.
Perma (custom scroll) - Like above, this makes it easier to balance, and you still get to have fun scrolling it. But it requires a lot of extra stuff added and risks confusion as we already have 2 different witch scrolls and would be adding a third.
Perma (once per year) - This option makes a lot of sense because it brings purple belt in line with items like Pilgrim Hat or Snow Fur Lump Cape, which give you a narrow shot at an extremely powerful item once per year. This would probably require the most work, since it would have to be removed from Malady's shop and added to a custom dialog or quest. It would also have to be tested, as there have been bugs exploited in the past that allowed players to make such items more than once per year.

 

I think the witch hats being permanent already offer a fun cheap csing experience.

Its too small of a niche with dojo already existing. Will potentially affect already limited dojo player pool.

Staff has already commented in the past there is no update plans to benefit islanders directly. Sorry for you guys, but the island experience itself can currently use many QoLs. I cannot be concerned with diverting time from our staff that recently removed two staff members within the past year on working on Islander QoL changes.

I think we are better off asking for a new event item that is permanent entirely that adjusting and old one that was balanced to expire. The belt scrolls being +5 variance potentially overpowers VL belts as mentioned above.

I think wanting more permanent event items is a great way to incentivize increased event activity. Let’s see some new ones where they are balanced on release to be permanent items.

 

Remember that the original post is suggesting a change whose implementation only requires two booleans and two strings changed in the server code- no scripts, no client changes, no sprites. As for the other ideas that have been voiced since then, it is sensible to argue that staff may not have the resources for it.

I'd also assert that this is not purely an islander QoL change. This would also benefit casual players and new players. Trust me, if you want to hear my ideas for islander-specific changes, I've got a whole folder of them I've been keeping away from the forum out of respect for the majority playerbase.

 

Yes they should be permanent. I like the idea of making adjustments to the cost of getting the belt or lowering the slots and thusly the stat ceiling if we're afraid it'd be too powerful for the ease of obtaining. I will argue that we gave the pilgrim hat an item that originally never had any stats on original Maple half zhelm stats and threw Attack with one slot so people could gamble on it and made it a piece of gear progression that isnt broken and stuck it behind an event. The witches belts could be the Halloween version of that. Would give us a viable 3rd option to obtain a lower power belt to progress towards.

 

I think this response is a little disrespectful, honestly. The primary audience for the first two belts will inevitably be HP washers, of which most players, including myself, are. This is not just an Islander QoL change, it is a majority of the playerbase QoL change, and I think this post demonstrated that well. Yes, Islanders would benefit, but I would also have had a slightly easier time washing my 30k HP Bucc by level 135, had the Red and Blue belts already been made permanent.

I do agree that having more permanent event items is a great way to incentivize increased event activity, but those exact new permanent event items could easily partly be these belts that are currently being ignored because they are temporary. It could be a pretty nice change for what is essentially a couple of lines of code.

 

Everyone is getting too hung up on extra things here that aren't the suggested change of this post. Original post is talking about Blue and Red. Purple was brought up, but that's not the original feedback. We can't discard the whole post over that. Yes, purple as it sits can not be permanent, however, red and blue can absolutely be permanent with very little change and would not be a meta breaker and effective ONCE A YEAR items that can take mid-tier slots like several other items.

In fact, we have several items that are a once a year best in slot. Think miwok, valentine ring, rudolph nose. Mid tier items like anniversary earrings as well. Realistically what are we going to see? People using a belt 100% scroll and the witch chaos scrolls giving a best of +11 stats? This doesn't tier over black belt or VL belt but it allows a casual happy medium one event a year solution.

 

support, what's the point in having the belts if they expire in 90 days, could atleast extend for 1 year or something.

 

Have a perm belt, but after 90 days (January Server Update?) it goes from whatever it was rolled to be to just a flat +something.

This would still give it some value during event, If you didn't do anything during event you don't get the boost, And it totally would be thematic. Just like Cinderella's carriage turns back into a pumpkin after midnight.

 

Perma letsgooo