Come on humans the upgrade system is too easy now, you can easy upgrade +9/+12 gear without any problems, you don't even need white stones, you can see every day ppl who upgrade items +14 and +15.
the end game will be fast with this rate.
+12 gear in tw/hk was already god tier and with +15 you was fakin alien.
these stones dropping like crazy you can drop easy about 3-5 stones in 1h of grind, the idea of increase drop rate was good but removing broken option is mistake, look at market here are tons of white stones.
the broken option was here for keep balance.
#EDIT
Display More#6-Grind/Upgrade System
today grind is not friendly especially for new comers and even after hard work your reward is not sure.
Lets start from grind you can grind for 3 hours and get few red/blue stones but someone else in 1h can get 3 green and 1 purple, this is not normal and fair, someone who forcing himself to grind and trying hard will lose motivation because here's is no results.
I suggest to add new crystals and give sure reward to players that grind and work hard for progress.
The crystals will have bind, drop rate of them will be 100%, 1 kill = 1 crystal (of course like today from lvl 55 monster you can drop only one stone of u50,u53,55,u58)
Now we need also add NPC where we will be able to exchange our crystals that also will have bind.
350 golden crystals u60 = 1red/blue u60
650 golden crystals u60 = White u60
900 golden crystals u60 = 1 purple/green u60
etc...
Next thing that we need to do is remove stones from tokens, and decrease drop rate of normal stones by 50%
Now we need back to yardat key (point 2) and let players trade these stones between characters, because we all know that turtle will get them way faster than fighter, without yardat key this system will be without balance
Player should be able to collect 999 stones in one slot or even 9999 if is possible.
Next is upgrade system
1- Give back broken card (when you selected broken card and you didnt use white stone your item is gone)2- when you hit broken option you getting downgrade -3(70%) -4(30%)
3- purple/green give only +2(60%) and +3(40%)
4- 100k zeni cost for every upgrade hit.
5- Every upgrade fail decrease item durability by 25%, broken by 50% (if white stone is used) you can't upgrade without durability.