Stormay
Novice
The talk of the town right now is that societies are going to be changed to some extent, specifically with the artificers enclave. As with all my posts, this will be TLDR, sorry. Right now I am assuming artificers jobs will become less attractive by some means or another, driving people to do more of the jobs from the other societies.
There are a few problems with how societies are now. For one, they are the main gateway to late game character progression, with very little alternative (for gold links, anyway). This may not be a problem itself, but it amplifies the other problems with societies.
There has been pretty hefty inflation of gold since the early days of the server, which is natural, but since skill gain is fairly relaxed, it had the effect of making GM level crafters (not necessarily 120) for alchemy and inscription trivial to make. The hardest part is tracking the timer and marking the runes for every appropriate vendor for the raw resources. It also means completing the weekly societies for these crafters is not as costly as it once was, relatively speaking. This led to people making as many as 3 GM alchy/scribes (1 per account) to complete these societies.
However, I would argue that the ability to throw raw gold to complete these societies isn't the biggest problem. I think the biggest problem with societies is they fundamentally alter game play too much or are just not fun. The goal of societies should be to change game play slightly to make it feel fresh, while providing some sort of benefit. There probably needs to be more ways to reasonably acquire gold links, but that's a different discussion. The problem is society jobs (in some cases) aren't providing neat challenges, they are providing chores. There is a fun aspect missing here, which makes crafter jobs that you can throw gold at to complete all the more attractive.
The Adventurers Lodge
Did I tell you how much I love air drakes?
A good example of societies that are not fun and need improving are the taming society quests. I do not want to tame 1400 air drakes. I don't care what power my character gets for achieving that, I did it once to get to 120 taming, and I think the majority of players don't find that aspect of the game compelling. Instead, some taming societies should be changed to killing X number of creatures (gold value) with a Y pet. For example, tell me I have to farm 50k with an air drake, or farm 75k in with an air drake in Nusero. It changes up my game play to feel fresh, while I am still actively doing something I want to be doing anyway (farming gold).
Some other tamer societies could be taming a creature with an overall positive stat value of 25 in Pulma. Most tamers lore creatures before they kill them just to see if they found some godlike pet (even if its not desirable). Again, this alters game play as I might go out of my way to kill drowned dragons in Pulma instead of demons, looking for a good stat one for the society. I am still doing what I want to be doing (farming gold), but how I do that is changing slightly. Alternatively, a society could be introduced to level two air drakes to level 10. Anything besides telling me to tame 1400 air drakes.
There also needs to be more tamer quests in general. (this will be a common theme)
You could also do something similar with summoners, kill X monsters with an air elemental. Alternatively play around with the circle 5 'summon creature' and form quests from those.
Lockpicking seems pretty straightforward, except if people are going to be driven to be more diverse in the societies they take, then I think lockpicking societies need to have more of the "LP X dungeon level of chests in Y dungeon" as opposed to just "X level of level Y-Z" chests, so that people don't feel forced to pick level 1 chests as a 120 LP in fortune.
Monster Hunter Society
What's a paragon?
The dungeon quests for farming X amount of gold in Y dungeon aren't necessarily the most interesting, but they don't have any major flaws. I think these are fine. Same for the creature type quests.
The jobs to kill specific creatures are good in theory, but in reality I have no interest in killing 74 harpies. There are multiple concerns with these:
A) The kill count is pretty damn high.
B) The entire server gets the same society quests.
C) This server is amazing and popular.
D) Some of the monsters have extremely limited spawns.
E) It seems like it's usually low difficulty mobs that are the targets (I don't have enough data here, feel free to correct me).
For example, one of the societies this week is to kill 74 nightstalkers (the only mob considered mid-range or on a dungeon level 3). I know of a couple spawns for these, and while the competition might not be the worst now, if people are pushed away from the artificer society, competition will jump dramatically. There are multiple ways to combat this, but I think the easiest way is just to expand the number of these quests available (especially at the upper range of monsters) so that potentially not everyone is fighting for the same society. I would also consider reducing the kill counts needed, and maybe forcing societies to generate in a way that guarantees 1 creature per level 3 dungeon per week.
The best solution here would be a way to randomize the societies that are available to any given person, so that they aren't static for the server. This prevents the entire server trying to farm 250k in Nusero. I imagine this would have been done already if it was anywhere approaching easy, so this might be outside of the realm of possibilities for what UO can do.
The biggest problem with this group is the paragon societies.
Paragons are already incredibly valuable, nobody is changing their game play around these societies. You can't do much different to kill a paragon, it's mostly just raw luck. And you do need to be lucky with how rare they are. Unless there is a considerable change to the paragon system, such as having the ability to transform a creature into a paragon after killing X of them or hopefully something more creative, I think these just need to be scrapped entirely. In their place, guarantee a job for mini bosses and bosses. You can also add more quests and options for both the kill monster by type, and kill monster by dungeon jobs.
Potentially change the paragon quests to finding a "quest item" that drops off a certain monster, or in a certain dungeon, and allow it to also spawn in chests. That gives some crossover to LPers as well. Not entirely sure if this is doable, and it's not a unique idea by any stretch, but it's certainly more controllable RNG without damaging/changing the value of paragons.
Tradesman Union and the Order of Armorers
Make last
pause 2000
I don't have much to say about these (thank god, right?). They are pretty straight forward, and provide at least some value to the mid-range resources. Like with the other societies, I think there just needs to be more of these jobs available to provide for some more choice and variance.
I also have no input on the Seafarer society, although looking at it, I imagine it could also use more jobs in general.
There are no quests for harvesting resources. I don't know if this is to combat the incentive to use bots to mine/chop, but maybe consider adding some quests to mine/chop X color resources. The reason is to incentive gathering more mid range resources if the demand for mid range resources is increasing on the other societies (by making more jobs for them)
There are a few problems with how societies are now. For one, they are the main gateway to late game character progression, with very little alternative (for gold links, anyway). This may not be a problem itself, but it amplifies the other problems with societies.
There has been pretty hefty inflation of gold since the early days of the server, which is natural, but since skill gain is fairly relaxed, it had the effect of making GM level crafters (not necessarily 120) for alchemy and inscription trivial to make. The hardest part is tracking the timer and marking the runes for every appropriate vendor for the raw resources. It also means completing the weekly societies for these crafters is not as costly as it once was, relatively speaking. This led to people making as many as 3 GM alchy/scribes (1 per account) to complete these societies.
However, I would argue that the ability to throw raw gold to complete these societies isn't the biggest problem. I think the biggest problem with societies is they fundamentally alter game play too much or are just not fun. The goal of societies should be to change game play slightly to make it feel fresh, while providing some sort of benefit. There probably needs to be more ways to reasonably acquire gold links, but that's a different discussion. The problem is society jobs (in some cases) aren't providing neat challenges, they are providing chores. There is a fun aspect missing here, which makes crafter jobs that you can throw gold at to complete all the more attractive.
The Adventurers Lodge
Did I tell you how much I love air drakes?
A good example of societies that are not fun and need improving are the taming society quests. I do not want to tame 1400 air drakes. I don't care what power my character gets for achieving that, I did it once to get to 120 taming, and I think the majority of players don't find that aspect of the game compelling. Instead, some taming societies should be changed to killing X number of creatures (gold value) with a Y pet. For example, tell me I have to farm 50k with an air drake, or farm 75k in with an air drake in Nusero. It changes up my game play to feel fresh, while I am still actively doing something I want to be doing anyway (farming gold).
Some other tamer societies could be taming a creature with an overall positive stat value of 25 in Pulma. Most tamers lore creatures before they kill them just to see if they found some godlike pet (even if its not desirable). Again, this alters game play as I might go out of my way to kill drowned dragons in Pulma instead of demons, looking for a good stat one for the society. I am still doing what I want to be doing (farming gold), but how I do that is changing slightly. Alternatively, a society could be introduced to level two air drakes to level 10. Anything besides telling me to tame 1400 air drakes.
There also needs to be more tamer quests in general. (this will be a common theme)
You could also do something similar with summoners, kill X monsters with an air elemental. Alternatively play around with the circle 5 'summon creature' and form quests from those.
Lockpicking seems pretty straightforward, except if people are going to be driven to be more diverse in the societies they take, then I think lockpicking societies need to have more of the "LP X dungeon level of chests in Y dungeon" as opposed to just "X level of level Y-Z" chests, so that people don't feel forced to pick level 1 chests as a 120 LP in fortune.
Monster Hunter Society
What's a paragon?
The dungeon quests for farming X amount of gold in Y dungeon aren't necessarily the most interesting, but they don't have any major flaws. I think these are fine. Same for the creature type quests.
The jobs to kill specific creatures are good in theory, but in reality I have no interest in killing 74 harpies. There are multiple concerns with these:
A) The kill count is pretty damn high.
B) The entire server gets the same society quests.
C) This server is amazing and popular.
D) Some of the monsters have extremely limited spawns.
E) It seems like it's usually low difficulty mobs that are the targets (I don't have enough data here, feel free to correct me).
For example, one of the societies this week is to kill 74 nightstalkers (the only mob considered mid-range or on a dungeon level 3). I know of a couple spawns for these, and while the competition might not be the worst now, if people are pushed away from the artificer society, competition will jump dramatically. There are multiple ways to combat this, but I think the easiest way is just to expand the number of these quests available (especially at the upper range of monsters) so that potentially not everyone is fighting for the same society. I would also consider reducing the kill counts needed, and maybe forcing societies to generate in a way that guarantees 1 creature per level 3 dungeon per week.
The best solution here would be a way to randomize the societies that are available to any given person, so that they aren't static for the server. This prevents the entire server trying to farm 250k in Nusero. I imagine this would have been done already if it was anywhere approaching easy, so this might be outside of the realm of possibilities for what UO can do.
The biggest problem with this group is the paragon societies.
Paragons are already incredibly valuable, nobody is changing their game play around these societies. You can't do much different to kill a paragon, it's mostly just raw luck. And you do need to be lucky with how rare they are. Unless there is a considerable change to the paragon system, such as having the ability to transform a creature into a paragon after killing X of them or hopefully something more creative, I think these just need to be scrapped entirely. In their place, guarantee a job for mini bosses and bosses. You can also add more quests and options for both the kill monster by type, and kill monster by dungeon jobs.
Potentially change the paragon quests to finding a "quest item" that drops off a certain monster, or in a certain dungeon, and allow it to also spawn in chests. That gives some crossover to LPers as well. Not entirely sure if this is doable, and it's not a unique idea by any stretch, but it's certainly more controllable RNG without damaging/changing the value of paragons.
Tradesman Union and the Order of Armorers
Make last
pause 2000
I don't have much to say about these (thank god, right?). They are pretty straight forward, and provide at least some value to the mid-range resources. Like with the other societies, I think there just needs to be more of these jobs available to provide for some more choice and variance.
I also have no input on the Seafarer society, although looking at it, I imagine it could also use more jobs in general.
There are no quests for harvesting resources. I don't know if this is to combat the incentive to use bots to mine/chop, but maybe consider adding some quests to mine/chop X color resources. The reason is to incentive gathering more mid range resources if the demand for mid range resources is increasing on the other societies (by making more jobs for them)
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I agree with Technicals, if people want to fill their chains with gold and they're willing to put in that work they should be able to.