The Issue with Souls

I'd like to preface this by saying:
I'm not the big bad government trying to take your souls away.

HOWEVER

The issue with souls has gotten out of hand. I find it that most players obtain a soul gun before they even rank up to guardian or another low-tier rank that costs a significant amount of money to a newer player. Maybe it isn't an amazing weapon, or maybe it's cheap; that isn't the issue. The issue with souls is that they have controlled the economy on the server for far too long, and the example stated above is a pretty good reflection of this effect.

I remember back before the Spring 2017 update when the game was based in the old safe-zone, and I remember the trading of weapons being very commonplace. This was, of course, partly due to the lack of the Auction House, but it was also a reference to the economy relying primarily on loot obtainable by anyone. Specifically, the selling of Barrets, XM8s, Gurkhas, and Miniguns was what you primarily saw.

The difference between these two types of economies is the same as the difference between a free market and a state-subsidized market. I, along with many others, believe that the idea of people being able to purchase soul crates, and especially custom donations, has in a sense ruined the economy for new or Free-2-Play members of the server, many of whom have already quit. The economy primarily runs on souls that have been purchased through donations. This favors the players that have money to spend and bends the economy in their favor. This wouldn't be such an issue if it weren't for many of those players banding together and forming alliances. With this, the situation now has a group of seemingly invincible players with overpowered gear that have no issue with genociding the newbie player base, whilst they also control the economy. I must also mention that the weapons don't drop, so the likelihood AND incentive to even attempt to challenge these players is minimal.

I understand that the server makes most of its money off of these purchases and that there is the counter-argument of airdrops being a method of getting soul crates whilst remaining Free-2-Play. The issue is that, as I've mentioned in the prior paragraph, the groups of kitted-up players are usually the ones who can loot the airdrop the fastest and with the most security, whereas the newbies (who need those items more than anyone else) are either killed while attempting to take the loot or don't even make an attempt out of a fear of dying to the group of kitted players. As for my rebuttal to the server making the majority of its income off of these purchases, (I feel like "donations" is an ostensible term that tries to hide the obvious transaction made) I think that the best way to make an income would be to keep destiny crates, veteran crates, and jackpot crates on the store. The way to get soul crates would be via airdrops, while the final boss could drop soul guns as well, with the chance of better guns being progressively smaller. This, in turn, allows the economy to focus on non-tracked, non-SB weapons which most people would be able to buy, obtain in the map, and sell. With the gameplay being more newbie-friendly, the chance of new players continuing their YomNetwork career would increase, which would not only boost the server's success but also the overall income of the server because of its larger player base.

That said, this post is just a suggestion for the next wipe, my actual concern with souls would be the introduction of soul-bound armor. When this idea was mentioned in chat, an overwhelming negative response swept through my screen. It is quite obvious to see that many players, including the veterans, found the idea of soul-bound sets (weapons and armor) would not only be overpowered, but broken as well; broken enough to legitimately ruin the gameplay, and cause loyal members to quit.

 

Thank you for taking such long time with effort to write on here, I will leave several reactions to this:
1. First of all, it is true that new players have more difficult times getting gears, however it is not impossible. Our player density is quite small actually. If you take a look on /map, the western and south-western areas in fact lack of players who visits them. Not only those areas, but anyone could go to a place and continuously loot for gears and sell them. It is true that cities are dangerous areas, however this is apocalyptic world where humanity has collapsed long time ago. This is part of the game and it's up to the players to either accept this situation or not. No matter how much improvement we could implement for the new players, it would be practically impossible for new people to become as powerful as experienced players. All current experienced players lived throughout the same experience as the new players as well. In fact, back in the days, there used to be hundreds of players online and even the map was smaller. Now the map is bigger and our toll reaches roughly 100 daily, which provides anyone an easier advantage to become more powerful in shorter period of time.

2. There are other ways to obtain soul crates than Airdrop (Which your idea does not seem to be supporting). You can get them from Airdrop primarily, TX Quests by a chance, from /ah and directly from players, as well as donations online which you have mentioned.

3. In fact, the god sets have become even easier to be killed than before, especially with tons of new variety of weapons that were added in the game last update.

4. There will be no wipe/reset for the next dayz update

5. The final boss does not drop soulbound weapons

6. We've had no mentions at all about soulbound armors at all; perhaps there was a mention about soulbound helmets, but we are not sure about that yet.

 

In response to Suppressed:

You seem to lack an affinity towards grammar, but I will simply assume this is because English may not be your first language.

Anyways, a lot of your counter-arguments are incorrect. When mentioning the Southern/South-Western areas being sufficient, vacant looting spots, you are ignoring the fact that the Southern Jugg Islands, along with the Scorn peninsula, are actually teeming with players. If you would take the time to scrounge the area, you would find that the region is littered with clan banners. Furthermore, you say that people can simply farm certain areas, (I'm assuming Dungeon/Army loot locations) which is incorrect. That is how most advanced-beginners try to make a living, but those looting areas are also hotspots for the advanced players to either camp or pass through. In this case, cities are actually safer; this is contrary to what you have said.

To critique your position even further, I will point out that lore is not a justification for a shitty system. You mentioned that the aesthetic and playstyle is apocalyptic and that humanity collapsed a long time ago. I fail to see how that justifies a newbie-hostile game. Unless the Anarcho-Capitalists took over and implemented their ideology, there is no reason for the economy to be driven by Soulbound guns that cost tens of thousands of dollars when killing a single zombie roughly grants $1.00. You mentioned that experienced players were all newbies at some point; this is also flagrantly false. Many of the high-ranking players have played the game when it was much easier to start off. As I mentioned before, the Spring 2017 update made the game considerably more difficult for everyone, especially newer players. Players that had gotten their ranks beforehand (ranks were the only thing that carried over in the update) were much better off. I realize that you have only been a forum member since 2019, so you may not have had the experience to take a stance on this argument. Finally, you mention that the server peeks at 100 players daily. You are not only exaggerating the entire server's population, but you also failed to realize the only players concerned are the ones on the DayZ server. This peeks at 60-70 players on a good day; it remains at half that for the majority of the day.

You mentioned TX quests offering a Free-2-Play method to getting Soulbound crates; I will admit, this did escape my mind. However, the vast majority of TX quests would require a player to be high ranking, as they either call for extremely difficult and long-lasting tasks or they require boss kills that a newbie would not have access to until the rank elder or higher (I'm referring to Smoke, Horde, Kingpin, and P0).

Most of the remaining arguments are just simply facts, some being incorrect. As for sets being easier to kill, that is untrue. The introduction of helmets has drastically changed PVP making it more difficult. As for simply brainstorming Soulbound helmets, this is also false. Dangeredevee has had a Soulbound Halloween mask for months now.

I would like an actual response or conversation starter for the next comment/reply. Trying to justify a problem when the issues have already been addressed is as productive as eating sand.

 

Love how you say “we” when we mods don't make the call about soul armor or helmets being added or not.

 

Hello Riderx,

I'd like to start off by saying thank you for actually including methods of fixing the servers game play, instead of simply filling the forums with the message that has been shouted by users for the past few years, which is "Remove Soul Bound Weapons!". Your ideas of fixing this current long lasting issue are actually quite nice, and making soul bound weapons even rarer would obviously decrease the lack of extremely overpowered weapons.

I myself being an owner of a Soul M4A4, Soul M110, Rec 7, and Tec 9, think that removing soul bound weapons would be very difficult to do in the near future, simply due to the fact that the server isn't due for a reset for a very, very long time.. Before the reset of 2019, there had not been a completely server-wide reset since 2016 or 2017 (I myself was not around, not sure exactly what year it was). From what I know, in the update, soul bound weapons will be made even more difficult to obtain (Not exactly sure how, could honestly just be a rumor) But along with the coming update, many weapons will be re balanced and reinvented in order to provide even better game play for ALL users.

As for the tracked and soul armor, there are currently only 3 ways to even obtain such godly gear. First, you can loot a Tracked Bravo Mask from the Kingpin boss (Extremely rare drop). Second, you can custom donate for one, normally amounting to $200-$300 (Honestly could be more than this), and third, Yom could gift you one as a present for either helping out the server, or because he feels like it. There are around 9-10 soul helmets in existence, and as far as I know, nobody is selling them, making them a rather difficult item to obtain. To address you concerns with the update, Yom has only teased the concept of soul-bound helmets in the Updates channel. Every time he's been asked he's only sent out a *Winky Face* or something dumb like that, meaning we are most likely going to be seeing the introduction of soul / tracked helmets with this update. I agree they will be overpowered, but the new helmets will have durability, and won't be similar to the current helmets at all. Honestly we'll just see how it plays out with soul bound Armour.. I'm personally not a fan, but we'll see what ends up being implimented.

My biggest concern is the Soul Backpacks.. Why are these even allowed in the game. Yom has charged hundreds of dollars for these items, and they are honestly just a weird addition to the game, and make zero sense. Currently there is only 1 soul Alice and 1 Soul Assault, but it's still honestly just weird.

Don't even get me going about my soul compass...