PVP & Death: Current Thinking Megapost

If you want a mandatory player economy, yes.

It's the reason I've purchased three pledges, though. So I can produce anything I want or need, without ever being forced to depend on other players for my crafting. I hate mandatory economy interaction, so I took the steps to turn it into optional for me.

TVTropes calls it "Too Awesome to Use."

The issue is, the threshold is different for most players. I, particularly, am the kind of player that typically beats games without using even easy to replace consumables, so if there is permanent item loss, I will likely use only the cheapest, easiest to get pieces of gear that can get the job done, and either hoard or sell anything better.

Which is interesting because I'm quite different in real life. I will use the best tool I can afford for a given job (with the caveat that best often does not mean more expensive, there are a lot of expensive tools of the trade whose only reason for being expensive is to flaunt the user's status). The difference, of course, is that in real life that best tool for the job can usually last longer than my lifetime if I treat it with the proper care and respect, so for all intents and purposes it might as well be permanent.

And that threshold is different for each player. I cross that threshold by the mere existence of gear decay, or any kind of gear loss, which means that if I can lose gear, then I absolutely ain't interested in pursuing it, killing one aspect of the game for me.

This does not mean that I won't play a game with gear loss; it just means that I will play it as if gear, and gear progression, didn't exist, and I will treat any need to re-gear as mere grind for grind's sake. In the specific case of SotA I believe it still has enough going for it to keep my interest even if I can lose my gear, though it sure will reduce my interest and, if the time wasted making sure I'm always geared is too high, might push me away due to excessive time wasted in mandatory and unfun activities.

 

yes but back in UO your had reactive armour wich gave you almost as high armour as a full plate suit from what I remember

 

That was a reasonable spell, but I think it was either or with spell reflect. I opted to have reflect magic on most of the time. A mage was powerful enough without armor.

Actually, I don't recall reactive armor being what you say. Now that I think of it I think it just dealt damage back to the warrior. So you still took full damage, but the warrior got some damage back as a little treat. If they have a spell like that in SotA I wouldn't mind.

 

how I remember was the following: Magic reflection gave you the ability to reflect one spell and reactive armour basically turned you into a tank mage

 

You needed a weapon skill to be a tank mage. Anybody could cast spells in UO. Armor didn't stop casting it only slowed the rate mana regenerated. So armor wasn't the defining factor. Having 1400 skill points would make everybody a tank mage. Reactive armor did nothing as far as I recall. I killed a lot of mages. I don't remember any mages being more difficult to kill thank just a few hits. Either reactive armor was basically useless or it did something other than what you said, because I always use to hammer mages.

It was missing the mage in combat that was dangerous, not his armor. If you couldn't interrupt the spell forget it.

 

And what you want to do is to change gear to make full loot less viable. My approach is equally valid.

The problem with having superior gear that cannot be crafted is that inevitably, that gear becomes widely available, which ruins the player economy. The only way to avoid that would be if you have your uber sword spawn x number of times, and then never spawn again until one of the ones spawned already is destroyed.

But if the item spawns automatically, if player think it is of worth the spawn frequency will be determined along with the spawn locations, and the item will be camped and farmed, to the detriment of player crafters.

Ya think? More accurately, I think you are oversimplifying it.

 

Now that you mention it, I do want a robust player economy, by choice, which would hardly be mandatory.

Excellent support of the game. I salute you. I don't have time for that, so I depend upon other players. It lets me get around more that way.

I figure a 90/10 split for common items would be ok. 90% of players use that +1 damage sword, while 10% horde it. As you go up in awesomeness, the ratio changes. If you get below 50% utilization, I think you begin to stop getting a useful bit of gear, and start getting a rare instead. If a majority of players just keep the thing in their bank or locked down in their house, you may as well make it something non-functional, like a rare orc-statue or a similar bit of cosmetic fluff.

We are not much different in that respect. In the same way I might not actually use an enchanted weapon if I can get 90% of the weapon function for 10% of the cost. Instead, I'll sell it to someone with more gold than sense, and buy 10 acceptable weapons rather that the best one I can find. As you say, everyone has their own cost/benefit ratio on things like that. Speaking of which...

Then do not choose full loot, if that is an available separate option, but do not demand that the option be not available for those who wish to accept the risk, as some in this thread advocate. that is not a reasonable position to take.

A perfectly reasonable approach for you, but not necessarily a reasonable approach for all.

 

Well first off when you say if there is gear loss and/or decay you will not get upgraded gear. Saying that you might as well never get into PvP or when PvM gets to difficult for you and it takes you an hour to kill something.
Secondly why would exploring dungeons and hunts be boring if you didn't get gear off the monsters/chests/floor...? You would be collecting the materials to craft the gear then either have your own crafter or tip another crafter some gold to make the gear you want from the materials you collect.
And lastly to make sure your always geared you explore dungeons and hunt monsters to get materials then craft it yourself or tip a crafter as I said earlier. <];D

 

I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion. I am fine with the approach the dev's have....I'm not the one trying to change anything. Didn't you mention in another post that you weren't? Seems to me that has changed.

Look, we all know how things worked in UO....everyone is pushing to try and get the same systems back in again with the same mechanics for loot and gear. This isn't going to be UO2 so why not try a different approach?

 

I was gone for a month or so before R8, so did I miss a definite announcement on how SotA will handle gear?

 

I meant I was fine with their proposed system in at the start of this thread

 

No. You didn't miss it any firm announcement. Although I did catch a quick mention that epic plate will not be the top level of plate. That being said, I still don't think we will see the ever increasing tiers of gear like WoW, but I do have the impression that gear itself will be more important in SotA than it was in the early days of UO.

Although that doesn't mean if you lose all your gear you may as well just quit. If that happened in WoW people might quit.

 

The last proposed system I remember, maybe incorrectly, was that the best gear was going to be player crafted, maybe with some enchantments, and affinities. Did they change that, or am I misrembering?

 

It will all be player made.

 

So rune's example of a superior sword found in a dungeon actually was an attempt on his part to change gear so as to make full loot less viable, just like I thought?

 

OH absolutely.

 

Seriously? this is how you discuss things?

 

just if you want to keep it real.

 

May as well, since in one thread you deny trying to change the design in order to make full loot less viable, and then immediately open a new thread to do exactly that using the same arguments.

How else should we discuss things under those circumstances?

 

I'm not trying to change the design. At all. I'm trying to get clarification.

Sorry that seems hard for you to understand.