Add in donation gems.

[ludvigpasse]

Character progression on this server is quite small. After you get s4 and sunwell weapons your pretty much set and this can be done in a couple of minutes for just 10 dollars. I for once love this server and would easily donate a few hundred more dollars but only if it actually gave me something rewarding in return but there is no reason to donate after this point. Because after this you cant make any more real progress in terms of gear/stats and such. I totally get that and i think it would have been the best idea assuming the codes for s4 and sunwell weapons was not made so cheap and therefore very many have them so the uniqueness is pretty much gone also it will limit the revenue to the server. In order to increase character progression while at the same time increasing cash spent on the server my idea is to introduce new donate-only gems which twice the stats of the normal gems but they are priced very differently from the other donate-options and will be a small upgrade that costs way more then the other codes do.

Blue gems:
30stamina, 20spirit, etc

Red gems:
24spelldmg, 44bonus healing, etc.

Yellow gems:
20haste, 20crit, 20hit, etc.

The price for donating for each gem should be like 20dollars. So that VERY few people will actually donate to the gems for their entire gear set couse it will cost them 100+ usd and only be a fairly small upgrade potential. Say if your using 8 gem slots and assuming you gem all for spelldmg you can only upgrade 12=*8(-2) spelldmg for a total of 94more spelldmg which is way smaller then the overall stat difference from say s3 and s4 and at about 160usd cost rather then 5usd. The gems should also be obtainable from say 200 wep fragments each for the players who dont want to donate money but its gonna take literally forever to get alot of gems this way. This change does a number of good things:

- Gives more money to the server (assuming say 2.000 gems were donated for that would mean 40.000 usd cash boost to the server which probably would be extremely helpful).

- It will create way more character progression and feeling of uniqueness, especially for those who decides to gem up using mostly/only wep fragments.

- It will NOT create p2w situations where one person can just buy their way to being OP simply because the maximum potential stat boost, even if you gem your entire gear with these gems, will be marginal and only slightly increase your performance. Maybe increase your damage output by 3-4% if you gem all red for example compared with current gems.

[Sbkzor]

There are retards saying 'trash donator' to every ppl.they meet cuz they cant afford 5usd for an equally geared char
Do ya think ppl would invest 20usd for a gem? Lolz i dont think so.

[ludvigpasse]

Definetly. I for once would buy 10-20 gems without hesitation and i think others would be intressted aswell. Also 200 wep frags per gem would make character progress basicly infinite and give reason for ppl to continue farming fragments

[Water]

I think the genuine authenticity and "blizz-like" PvP with Smolderforge is what the majority of the community enjoys. Smolderforge eliminates the time dump that it takes for professions, leveling, etc.

So to add custom things such as these would turn off a lot of players. I for one would not enjoy playing against a mage with 20 yellow haste gems in every single slot. That would be preposterous.

Luckily the want for a genuine PvP server thwarts the need for money, or this server could have gone in the wrong direction years ago with the amount of custom requests people come up with.

[ludvigpasse]

Yea i get your arguments but it if your using say sunflare and hastedrums you get almost as most added haste as you would with the improved gems. It would not be a big difference fighting someone fully gemmed (which btw would be so expensive you would probably only see someone having it in maybe 1/5 bg;s. And half of the time it will be someone in your team anyways so unless your playing top end arena then i dont think it would be a problem for anyone because of the rarity. Ppl hear already think 5 usd is expensive not many ppl will spend 160dollars or so for a tiny upgrade. I do still get your point even though i believe your overrating the issue simply due to how rare it will be and how margain the stat boost would be. But remember these guys that do get the gems by donating for them is helping out the servers economics quite a bit. All in all i think it would be good if henry was able to make some more money out of the server to have the motivation to support it and with 200 wep frags or maybe even 150 each if you play long enough you can start getting a couple of gems for free which can also help to motivate ppl on continue their character progression and keep servers population higher.

[Tazar]

Lol...such a retarded idea :D image playing vs full gemed healing resto druid spaming lifebloom.. :D you are right not many ppl will donate for it , thats why alot ppl will leave also because if u fight in bgs vs player with ur gems gonna be pain in the ass.

[ludvigpasse]

Yea the idea is not without it flaws however people could still aquire them for free doing bgs and pve to farm fragments. I think ideally s4 should have been made to cost like 100 usd and been made way harder to aquire from arena also to correspond to the 100usd cost. Assuming the goal would be to make as much money as possible running the server that is. It would make sense from a economical perspective to reward players spending money. Getting bis setupp for like 10 usd for most classes imo is way to cheap especially with a limited playerbase like this server to make any real money running it im assuming. But it boils down to perspective i guess. Ofc it would make people salty but from purely economical perspective it would make sense and the stat diffs are to minor to have a real impact in bgs also it increases value of wep frags encouraging more pve and pvp. But ofc there are negatives with the idea too like others have bring up.

[Bucovsky]

@ludvigpasse Imho s4 price should stay at 5$ but it should be easier to get in-game. Do you want to even increase the gap between donors and non donors or what? Donor gear is wrong for the community in general. Might be good for server funds but certainly not for the level of gameplay.

[Rule]

it should be easier to get in-game.

What you mean with easier to get ingame? 1700 for full s4 except Shoulders and Weapons is just fine. Don't make it to easy there has to be something you have to fight for. 2050 as non donor is very doable.

If you want to see something added to the donation list it should be Mounts.

[Oldsalt]

@ludvigpasse It is actually a good idea to increase the grinding potential on SF, but having it accessible via donations isn't a solution. Indeed it would give more money to the server but I don't think Henhouse has ever wanted to make his server a complete p2w. And for a good reason, SF is just an old private server of a game where passionate players meet, not even a firm.
Speaking of the gem itself, you want to double the gain of stats. A full PvP set has got 8 gem sockets and a meta. If you add PvE legs instead or PvE off-sets you can have 11-12 sockets. If I take the gems you mentionned as an example that's a potential increase of 120-180 stamina, 80-120 spirit, 96-144 spell dmg, 176-264 bonus healing, 80-120 haste rating, etc.
If we wanted to give players all those stats, we should re-introduce many SWP items, that would do it. :D

@Rule Shoulders and Weapons should still be around 2k.
Nevertheless I do not agree with your statement that we must not make S4 "too easy" to get. I honestly think we should make few items very accessible by removing the required rating (e.g off-set items) and standardizing the AP costs (not reducing them, but making them more coherent).
If the arena always has been low, and even more lately it is due to the non-involvement from the casual part of the community. And we can't blame them, they have no reason to play arenas because they won't get anything from it besides being humiliated by few teams who definitely know their comp and/or 2v2 match-ups in general.
By allowing these specific players to get S4 items, they will think of playing arena matches, and perhaps enjoy them.
I'm not saying it's a miracle solution, the only one would be a developer who can give his time. But that's rare nowadays.