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Make Silver Stars Free Pulls?

Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 12:53 pm
by Isladar
As the title suggests, I was wondering if it would make sense to make Silver Stars free to pull in run. I can't remember if this was brought up and rejected (I admit I did not search the forums for a similar topic). It's just that, until this morning, I was under the mistaken impression that they already were free-pulls.

Re: Make Silver Stars Free Pulls?

Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 4:53 pm
by Harry Dresden
That's a tough one. They give a pretty decent buff for people in no pull or very limited pull runs, but at the same time I've felt the frustration of being in a restricted run, wanting to buy something at the Wok, and not being able to because my stars were in storage.

Kinak might be able to fix the Wok thing (let it purchase with stars from Deep Storage), but I don't know what kind of coding would be involved or if it would be worth the time.

Re: Make Silver Stars Free Pulls?

Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 6:28 pm
by Isladar
I agree that there is an argument both ways. On the one hand it is a nice bonus, but in any non-no-pull run you can always buy and equip them if you so desire. If I hadn't just made my monthly donation, this is what I would have done, and thought nothing more of it.

I like the idea of spending from storage, but I imagine there's a pretty big coding issue there--and this doesn't seem like it is quite important enough to take time away from new content or actual problems. Making them free-pulls, though, would probably take a lot less work.

Re: Make Silver Stars Free Pulls?

Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 6:44 pm
by Kinak
I've been thinking about this a lot (actually, even before this thread came up).

The fact that you can donate for them in-run effectively makes them free pulls already, so it shouldn't cause any problems. It does feel weird, though.

In any case, the silver and gold star are now flagged as free pulls.

Cheers!
Kinak

Re: Make Silver Stars Free Pulls?

Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 1:34 pm
by Cristiona
I dunno about this.

Imagine a competitive heirloom run where one person also pulls two gold stars. It's a pretty huge boost. I get wanting to be able to spend at the Wok, but I worry about the skewing effect on the Derby.

Re: Make Silver Stars Free Pulls?

Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 2:48 pm
by acidcat
I agree with everyone else here - being able to buy from the WoK from stars in deep storage would be ideal for balance but difficult to code.

Having them as free pulls means that heirloom runs become much easier and a bit faster when you wield 2 gold stars (and 2 silver stars when you go for training)

Re: Make Silver Stars Free Pulls?

Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 5:10 pm
by Kinak
acidcat wrote:I agree with everyone else here - being able to buy from the WoK from stars in deep storage would be ideal for balance but difficult to code.
It'd end up with completely rewriting the wok and the donation code. Because, as it stands right now, the stars from donations go directly to inventory.

Which means, that people timing their retcons to coincide with donations could already do this:
acidcat wrote:Having them as free pulls means that heirloom runs become much easier and a bit faster when you wield 2 gold stars (and 2 silver stars when you go for training)
I could rewrite the wok and donation code if people are concerned. But, before I commit myself to anything like that, I want it to be clear that people have been able to access stars without using pulls for years.

Cheers!
Kinak

Re: Make Silver Stars Free Pulls?

Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 9:44 pm
by acidcat
Kinak wrote:
acidcat wrote:I agree with everyone else here - being able to buy from the WoK from stars in deep storage would be ideal for balance but difficult to code.
It'd end up with completely rewriting the wok and the donation code. Because, as it stands right now, the stars from donations go directly to inventory.
Personally from the sounds of it this is not a good use of your time - I think for game balancing buying from deep storage is optimal, but work required for small amount of advantage of pulling stars is not probably worthwhile.
Kinak wrote: Which means, that people timing their retcons to coincide with donations could already do this:
I could rewrite the wok and donation code if people are concerned. But, before I commit myself to anything like that, I want it to be clear that people have been able to access stars without using pulls for years.
Understood and agree, but it's far easier to pull existing stars than donate every retcon - if people wanted to donate each retcon to get the advantage then I say good luck to them.

Just my opinion, please go with whatever you were going to do anyway :D