Diamond Dragon Eggs[DDE]
DDE are 3 dragons (One of each element.) that give a 10% stat/PR increase to every gem of that element. A huge amount of power and PR, especially in the endgame.
Currently, the only way to obtain them is through Empowered Gem Boxes[EGB]. EGB can only be obtained through the Shadowy Market for the cost of 1 Lunar Soul[LS] per Box, through contests, or through the Store by spending real $. LSs can only be acquired once a week by defeating DotM. This means that without spending real money, DDE are time gated and RNG based.
I've personally opened around 700 EGB, and I have 0 DDE. I've gotten EVERY free to play EGB available since MoP (Besides 1), and I've spent around $1,000 worth of credits that I earned through creating content for Trove, plus some money I actually spent for packs since MoP release.
This is with my strongest gear, not my highest PR gear. I could hit 21,500 PR with my highest.
It's been over 4 months since MoP released, and I've missed out on a potential Chaos Coin every week since, due to DDE. I've had to spend much more flux, dust, and other resources to compete for top 25 spots due to not having them, I've had to farm extra hard to be able to have spots in speed groups, and I've missed out on being able to compete for the #1 Mastery spot as well.
All of this comes down to RNG. My EXTREME efforts mean nothing, and RNG means everything. This is BROKEN and MUST be FIXED NOW!
Solutions:
Make DDE craftable at the Dragon Crucible. Require similar things as previously recommended by other players (50k of each Dust, 1m Flux, 10 Empowered Gem Fragments, and 10 Re-Gemerators.) This is already an insane amount of resources for the average player, and enough to take a chunk out of almost any endgame player's wallet.
Make EGB farmable. Give 1 Lunar Soul per DotM Ultra defeated after the inital completion. And as an alternative, so that players that don't enjoy STs can also participate, give a crafting option in the Adventurer's Crafting Bench that takes 5 Shadow Gem Boxes of each element, and 5k Flux per EGB.
Empowered Gems[EG]
Similar to DDE, EG can only be obtained from EGB. There is nothing you can do besides wait for a good gem. There is absolutely nothing you can do to affect this process, which is broken. You are dealing with RNG to get the gem, then RNG that the stats are correct, then RNG that the rarity and stars are correct, then RNG that the boosters are correct, and even with a perfect gem, RNG that the passive fits with your current gems.
This gem is hurting my stats more than the rest of my gems, but there's nothing I can do about it besides wait and hope. We MUST be given a way to INFLUENCE our progression in this area.
Solutions:
Make EGB farmable (Read Above).
We need to have the ability to pay some minimal cost (1 Re-Gemerator), to be able to change passives on a gem to a new passive. This is an area where RNG would be ok as long as the other issues in this list are taken care of.
Make Class Gems socketable to ANY element.
Potentially allowing the ability to re-roll 1 stat type per gem, but then locking that gem, so that you can only continue to roll the chosen stat would be good. But honestly, if all of these other solutions were implemented, you may not even need this option.
Gem Removal
Finally, gem removal. Currently we have to pay Cubits to remove gems (Another timegated problem). This is a major issue, as it affects endgame players severely. New players should not be removing gems anyways unless they are Empowered Radiant or Stellar. So it only affects players that are around 10k PR+. It restricts players to using only a couple of classes, it makes it much harder to compete in contests which are already dominated by players with lucky DDEs, and makes a CLASS BASED GAME un-fun! Part of what makes Trove great, is the ability to change classes on the fly. Changing classes based on the situation, or to fill a role in a group is important.
We MUST be able to CHANGE CLASSES TO FIT ANY GIVEN SITUATION!
Solutions:
First, make all contest rewards personal goals, or prestigious. An example:
- # 1 - Resplendant Name for 1 week. (Anything aesthetic works.)
- Top 25 - Special Footstep VFX for a week. (Anything aesthetic works.)
- 15k PR+ - Ninth Life
- 10k PR+ - Class Gem Key
- 5k+ - 2 Empowered Gem Box
- 2.5k+ 1 Empowered Gem Box
Second, remove ALL cost from swapping gems. The flux cost only hurts poor players, and the cubit cost hurts everyone. Give players the freedom to mix, match, experiment, and change classes as they see fit. It makes the game more fun, and players will stay around.
Random Feedback
Please make the non-class contests more fun. Blocks Placed, and Blocks Destroyed were fun the first time, but now they just promote Carpel Tunnel and bots/auto-clickers.
Solution:
How about a treasure hunt?!? Start with a sign in the hub, have a particular boss for each tier of the contest. If you kill the first boss (that you found using the clues from the sign in the hub), then that boss will unlock the 1st tier of the contest's rewards, and he'll drop a clue to the next boss. And after doing the 5 bosses (IN ORDER), then you have unlocked all rewards for that week.
Things like this are actually fun, and make people excited to play. This was a 5 second idea, and I know I could do better, and I know YOU can do better. So please do so. <3
Final Notes
You may not agree with the exact solutions I proposed, but these or similar things need to happen, and they need to happen soon.
You lose any and all motivation to play a game, when the ability to progress is taken out of your hands. RNG is only fun in doses. Too much RNG kills a game.
..--==__Please keep all comments productive. We all want a great game to enjoy!__==--..