Untradeable Skill Books

I don't like any of the 3 solutions you proposed to be honest. It's just not meant to be tradable IMO. Having them set for a set amount of mesos would be unfair too for the people who DID pay up went through hell and effort to get the books in a zrun.

Just placing them in an account by a gm? really?

 

Make it drop from snails at a 1/100000 rate!

Just kidding. But making it obtainable with mesos easily is really unfair towards those who got it the hard way, as Leeuw kindly pointed out.

I honestly don't think there is a good solution for this that wouldn't be more unfair than it is as we speak. I'm sure everyone who has a Mac has a friend with a computer running Windows...

Edit: Actually, maybe making it droppable from very strong monsters at a really low rate might be fair... Maybe the monsters at CWK, Crimson Guardians?

 

It should nevertheless still be a rare drop IMO.

I was thinking it might be possible for the GMs to create a custom quest which players have to complete to get a quest book. Preferably harder than Alcasters.

Not sure about using your friends computer. Lets say, I log into my character using someone's else computer, wouldn't I be logging in using a different IP address? It may run the risk of getting people banned unnecessarily for account sharing. Seems like a hassle to me.

 

Lets focus on the original quests first.

 

Oh, I didn't mean something that would require actual NPCs, but perhaps a set amount of items a player has to collect and turn in to the GMs in exchange for the skill book.

Not sure if that'll give the GMs more work coding wise tho.

 

I would hardly call standing in the corner and potting for 30'minutes "going through hell" but I do see where you're coming from.

Consider this scenario:

Player A obtains TT10 from a guild for 100m (not sure what guilds actually charge for this book). They come on the zak run, stand in the corner and pot for half an hour and when Zak is dead they loot the book when their name is called.

Player B , is unable to Zak because his mac sucks, doesn't have parallels/boot camp and doesn't have any friends IRL who play royals. He goes to the FM and purchases TT10 for 300m.

How is this unfair to either of the players ? If anything it provides more balance to the game because more players will be able to play their class to its full potential.

 

Cuz for player A, they had to do the prequests in order to get the book.

Player B, maybe making money is easier, and they don't have to do the prequest in order to obtain the book. Your scenario actually makes it more unfair for A because B has to pay more than A, but makes it easier. A has take the time to do the prequest, and take the time to go on a run. So the scenario doesn't make it easier, it makes it more unfair for Player A.

 

I like this option. At last, it would still require someone's effort to go in the run and actually getting the books. If it serves the purpose of maintaining the difficulty to acquire them, then lower their drop rates even more Idk (people will hate me for this last part). But at last, when more people start acquiring them and more people are able to zrun, then the prices will just go down so there's not much to fear.

 

I don't see how it's unfair if the players already have them... If they were to acquire it again then they would be set in the same conditions.

That would be like saying that improvements are not meant to be carried out just because those who had to go through all the hard work before the improvement would have passed an unequal treatment. At last, people are unabled to get these books for various reasons such as constant DCs, having a Mac, and even server massive dc's or crash while in the Zrun (just happened to me).

So IMO, if you had to do the prequest and survive those 30~59 mins to do a zrun then that only adds up to your Mapling experience! I mean afterwards, it only means that in the future you will be able to go into Zakum and actually carry out a run, which Player B in that other scenario cannot.

 

The mastery books don't have a 100% droprate afaik (didn't skadi do 100 zruns to get aca 10 or something?), which is part of the issue of making them tradeable. Certainly an option to get them that is extremely unappealing to those that can zak at all would be fair, but it takes time and effort, and seems to only apply to a very small demographic with no desire to take the time to create a (temporary) windows installation.

 

I'm just mildly curious here... How come so many Mac users can't Zak, whereas I have Zakked on a Mac 5 times, 4 runs of which I did not d/c. And Matt also stated he has, too, done Zruns on his Mac without d/cing. Do you guys change the picture quality enough? I did it every 3-5 minutes, especially during B3...

 

I tried Zakking once with my Mac and had to change gfx every few seconds due to black screen before I eventually DCed.

 

I only use Mac OS X on my own computer (I have 3 partitions, Windows 8, Mac OS X Mavericks and Linux), but I don't think it would make a difference if I have an actual Mac or am just using the Mac client on my OS X partition.

 

ymmv probably applies quite heavily here.

 

I'm curious too Marty, I have spoken to a few other mac users who have no problem whatsoever with Zak. Others, such as myself just can't do it, even with frequent GFX.

 

Yeah its not something easy to figure out.. I was thinking you get 1 point every level after 120 (ex. lvl 126 = 6 points) And you would need a certain number of points depending on the drop rate of the book. tt10 is a very high drop rate so maybe 5-7 points but something like gen 20 or aca10 is a ow drop rate so maybe 10-15 points. Just a suggestion let me know what you guys think

 

Changed the title of the thread, because Mastery books are tradeable - it's the lvl 10 Skill Books that aren't.