Game Design Bovine Cuff

Many people don't give a second thought about the bracelet that drops when they kill Mooington for the first time. It's likely that they killed Mooington while gathering the 3 items they need to do Reincarnation. While many simply throw away the Bovine Cuff, others take advantage of it. While the Bovine Cuff is often not even seen, it is being abused by more people than you would think, and deserves more than just a nerf.

Bovine Cuff is extremely easy to obtain. All you have to do is kill Mooington, and bam, you get one. In fact, every single time you kill Mooington, he drops one. This can be easily abused. For example:
https://gyazo.com/58d2eb3c87a05752b6ed16abcd4a24fc
Keep in mind that I obtained those Bovine Cuffs in ~40 minutes. Furthermore, the Bovine Cuff is an extremely easy way to get money. Too easy, in fact. When you sell a single Bovine Cuff to the item buyer, you get around 2 EB and 20 emeralds. Most people buy/sell good-average Bovine Cuffs for no less than 8 EB each. More often, though, people buy max Bovine Cuffs; these sell for about 15-20 EB. Keep in mind that these are not too uncommon. You have to realize that even when people that farm Bovine Cuff acquire some that are not sellable to other players, they can just sell it to the Item Buyer, and they still make a profit. I believe making the Bovine Cuff untradable would fix this issue.

There is still a multitude of arguments that people can make to claim that Bovine Cuff is fine how it is; however, most of them can be countered. For example, one may claim that making the Bovine Cuff untradable would ruin the trade of them and that they would ultimately be ruined. However, I would like you to take a look at this item:
https://gyazo.com/a974cb83b9ebf2b2de27f21b8ee4671e
The Matryoshka Idol and the Bovine Cuff are very similar, characteristics-wise. They are both supposed to be geared towards the lower leveled player base. They are both obtained by killing a mob and are both dropped every single time that mob is killed. However, there is a big difference: the Matryoshka Shell is untradable, while the Bovine Cuff is not. Yes, the Matryoshka Idol can be seen as much, much better than the Bovine Cuff, but it is still bad, no? People rarely use it at endgame level; though it may still be used, the Bovine Cuff is used more frequently at endgame. Yes, the Matryoshka Shell is supposed to be a special secret that players are supposed to find on their own, but my point still stands. The Matryoshka Shell is fine how it is, and that is why I'm not suggesting a change for it. The Bovine Cuff, however, still needs to be changed so that it is untradable. Another discrepancy is that people may say Pride is soon going to be more viable than Bovine Cuff, since Bovine Cuff is getting a nerf soon. However, this is completely inaccurate. Even after the balance change, Bovine Cuff will still have that extra 7strength skill points, even though it has 0 skill point requirements, while the only upper hands that Pride will have are that one melee % and the 5% xp bonus (even though we all know no one cares about the XP), despite the fact that it has a 50 strength skill point requirement (and is level 93).

In conclusion, Bovine Cuff would still not be balanced even after the balance change and deserves to be untradable. As of right now, too many people abuse it to get tons of money with little to no effort. Although it would shut down the trading and selling of Bovine Cuffs, it would ultimately make it more balanced.

Yes, I did just write an essay on the Bovine Cuff.
TL;DR: no, you don't get one. i worked hard on this essay ;-;

 

I tried out the grinding method. It took me about an hour to obtain the 64 cuffs (though I think that if I'd do again I could do it in 40min), and I made a profit of 52eb. Just derping in Seavale Reefs seems more efficient to me. Therefore I don't really see any reason to make it an untradeable item. It's not that op, and people can just trade the ones with good id's just like with any other item.

 

I respect your opinion. However, no one buys Bovine Cuffs unless they are max stats. Because they are so easy to farm, they are only used when they are maxed. Yes, other items like Finesse, Reminder, and Malachite are commonly used when they have max skill points, but these are much harder to find maxed out, unlike Bovine Cuffs.
Because they are only sold at max stats, it doesn't really matter what the range is. It literally wouldn't make a difference if the drop rate of Bovine Cuffs were changed to make it a rare drop with set stats

 

You could just nerf them. They also lose their value if they are sold at max stats so much. I don't see why it would break the economy even further than it already has. Though it is, as you said, not ok that they are only used at max stats.

 

It is already planning to get nerfed slightly. But as I discussed in the original post, it won't make an impact at all, and will still be with more frequency than it's level 93 counterpart, Pride. Imo, making them untradable would fix the massive amount of max stat Bovine Cuffs being used

 

It wouldn't really solve the "massive amount of max stat Bovine Cuffs being used" if just about anyone could farm them until they got a max one.

 

There's not a ton of people that farm them. There's a ton of people that buy max ones. Because people are inherently lazy, unless they were highly motivated, they would drop the idea of using Bovine Cuffs since it wouldn't be as easy as buying it off of someone

 

Bovine cuff was already nerfed and the next higher earth bracelet was buffed. There’s really no need to do anything.

 

first off, Bovine Cuff wasn't nerfed yet, and Pride wasn't buffed yet. They're both planning to be buffed/nerfed respectively, but there's no ETA for it yet.

secondly,

read thread before commenting please
even when the balance change comes, Pride will still not be as good as Bovine Cuff, while being a ton harder to farm at maximum stats

 

First point doesn’t matter then. Second, it’s literally just a 2 sp. It’s a far cry from calling it abuse. Yes, there is the skill requirement, but that doesn’t really matter since most earth builds require 50 str. already.

 

Im not calling the fact that it's better than Pride abuse. I'm calling the fact that it can easily be farmed and sold and max stats abuse, because of how easy it is to get

 

Eh, the economy is so screwed up right now that that’s probably the least of its problems. 2 eb per cuff isn’t a lot, you can easily get more by grinding, loot running, Seavake reef, or literally anything in the same amount of time. It’s not like Bovine Cuff is like a endgame rainbow item like Prism that can be slapped onto any build. It’s too niche to have a large player market for it, so even if you say get a half a stack of max bovine cuffs, you’d probably sell at most 5 or 6 within a few days, which is barely a stack at MAX price. And if people grinding bovine cuff for max stats is as prevalent as you make it out to be, the price is bound to drop due to supply and demand. Or, people will realize that it’s extremely easy and just grind it themselves.

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Overall, it’s still a far cry from abuse.