Important! Planet Arkadia Update 2017.2 Release Notes (30th May 2017)

Looks like the new clothing BPs are requiring some previously useless skins, like Riptor, Otorugi, and Navi. Great job Arkadia team, introducing more MU into the game! MA needs to take lessons.

 

I reckon for the same reason why Arkoins are listed under Texture Materials/Synthetics

 

The WCCL syndrome ... We Can't Care Less.
Not aimed at A-Team. I'm sure this is all MA.

 

i like the new masks, somewhat cool item!

 

Got miself a Swedish and a Serbian mask. If only the UK one was less expensive...

 

Next week this "limited time" will be 1 whole calendar year, please can we get these taken out of the game, loot 2.0 has hurt all, and finding these masks constantly in loot is very annoying, they have no significant MU and the novelty has certainly worn off. Honestly I would rather have shrapnel than masks. Also looting masks instead of items like guns etc is hurting availability of equipment on Arkadia.

These masks are even showing up in the Aakas and Warehouse instances where most go with the intent on finding items with a good MU (since running an instance is a loss without rare loot)

I can't help but wonder how many people might have looted a DNA brain with a nice bounty on it, but instead ended up with silly combat mask.

Another option may be to make a mission chain that people who want a mask can do, should they want a mask. Give the players choice, don't force stuff like masks in loot.

 

The masks were a nice idea, but I totally agree we have gone way past saturation. Stopping them dropping completely, or only having them drop occasionally in say an oratan event, would slowly give them some rarity, and therefore some value, as older players get rid of them and newer players want one.

 

Why would they take them out of loot? Thats clearly not their business model.
Look at everything else. Its pure bs marketing. “For limited time”, “unique opportunity”, “only such n such amount”!

In short - they were never meant to be limited. Just a little neat trick to get players to come and try to loot some!

 

My loot has improved since Loot 2.0 and I probably have only had less than 20 masks in the past year.

Just saying

 

aw darn, now you are gonna have em removed, so I guess I better start buying em to finish out the collection, lol. Seriously know what you mean though, when the 'wave' for masks hit it all hits at once, so you get a handful at a time instead of just one of this and some other goood loot, etc.

Don't think they should do away with them, but maybe spread em out among different mobs in different levels, etc. and randomize it so each vu which mob loots which mask changes, etc. Give it some variety.

Something I'd like to see is a 'flag' for each mask to match it... As well as other clothes or armors to match em all... Rocktropia has a few flags as components, but not nearly as many 'countries' as there are masks... Should make it so if someone wanted to fill a 600 item point apartment with shopkeepers or mani pads they could do so with each npc wearing a different mask, and matching suit, and have a matching flag next to them.

Instead of doing away with the masks, how about changing them... they are clothes now... modify them to be armor, and make it so they can be tiered, and have 'upgrades' for buffs.

Think the original idea was just thrown out there as a novelty item since the Olympics were happening, but lots of potential to do much more with em.

 

The point I am trying to make is that Combat masks are crappy loot and I recommend they be removed from loot, NOT removed from game, If they make a mission chain to attain the Combat mask of your choice (and make it repeatable for collectors) it may also attract players from other planets. Maybe something along the lines of; go kill 100 Carabok, 100 Hornets, 100 Gallard, and bring x amount of something (like hides) from them back for hand in (to match TT value).

Many of us get up to 16 masks in 1 HOF or large Global, it is soul destroying to hear that HOF sound just to see masks, a HOF on another planet is more likely to give you something like a (L) weapon or item with a MU. Not only does this annoy players, but some hunters have left Ark for other pastures, and for them to come back, something has to change.

Summary:

Take masks out of loot, stick it in a mission chain (with the immigration NPC) and stick those Piron (L) back into loot. The loot quality on Ark has dropped in the last year.

 

I disagree strongly. The best thing we could do for the planet's health is to bring back the ark crafted weapons. So much of Ark's economy is based on the principle of weapon crafting. Weapon crafting uses massive amounts of materials, both hunted and mined. But bringing them back requires removing L weapons from loot. Now that loot is no longer determined by the historical weapon efficiency standards, many ark weapons are an economical choice again. I have started using them again myself. If we made a concerted effort to buy Ark crafted weapons, we could bring markup back to our loot.

While masks certainly aren't the most exciting loot, they don't negatively affect the economy and they're easy to TT. So if it's a choice between the two, I'd much rather see masks in loot than weapons.

 

New weapon b.p. that uses full tt masks as an ingredient? Maybe an armor b.p set...

 

I'd rather they continue the trend of the latest round of clothing blueprints, take underused animal parts. Let the masks phase out and maybe become collectible over time, or keep them as tt fodder as others suggested above. Targeted hunting for creature-specific items is much more rewarding.

Or on second thought: Maybe for texture bps? The masks might be appreciated more if there were options for using the patterns. I don't know how they would be scaled when applied to clothing or other items but I assume the designers can adjust that. Make the bps use cloth extractors which are less popular so far. The blueprint can only take a fully repaired mask, which means a significant input value, while the texture shouldn't have such a high value itself or people won't adopt it. Therefore it should be a blueprint that turns out quite a number of textures per successful click. This won't be a typical skilling bp, but this way achieves balance between supply and demand.

 

I agree, a good use for the masks, if they were to remain in loot permanently, would be to use them to texturize objects. In order to utilize existing systems they would have to be a mission broker which could texturize existing items like weapons, or a new BP that would convert a facemask into a certain amount of texture which can be applied to clothing. I'm not sure how many different masks there are but I'm guessing at least a hundred. Putting it into a mission broker requires setting up 100+ new missions and their corresponding object products. The second option requires setting up 100+ new BPs and their textures which can be applied to any object (I understand making textures not look weird is a fair amount of work, unless most of this work has already been done when they designed the masks the first time?).

In other words, it would be cool, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's too much developer time to be practical, just because of the 100+ repetitions. Plus, they previously said the masks were limited time only, so I expect they'll disappear soon anyway. It should be relatively easy, on the other hand, for MA to remove items from loot. I'm pretty sure they can do it even without an update.

I also agree they need to revisit the most recent Ark clothes. Some of them still just refuse to drop, and some are a bit too rare. Also there's a visual bug that makes at least one of the items unsellable, hopefully that fix is on its way soon.

 

A big thing ark could do is fix the ifn weapon upgrade system. Currently you have to input 10-15% tt value and you get none of it back. I imagine getting MA to put in such a system was stupid expensive but as it is now nobody uses it.

Have the TT value of the treasure mats you use in the upgrade either come back as uni ammo or preferably get added to the gun TT. Just change the mission to give you a MK2 version or something to avoid problems.

Bam, much higher demand for ark weapons, ark treasure and a significant reward for how far along you are in the ifn daily missions.


But who am I kidding, the few designers that ark has left are probably going full bore on the moon.