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Magic, Combat, and Crafting Skills

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by DarkStarr, Nov 12, 2013.

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  1. Braig Gorgor

    Braig Gorgor Avatar

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    Very nice!! good job!!
     
  2. W1rcu2

    W1rcu2 Avatar

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    What about thievery?
     
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  3. vjek

    vjek Avatar

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    While I know this mechanic sounds "sexy" and is considered new, there is an economic concern with this model, if this is in reference to player-crafted items sold to NPCs going into the global loot table. I'm going to presume that's the reference here, and not just monsters-looting-players.

    The primary problem with selling the same item (via an automatic mechanic) more than once, and not destroying it is: You are generating gold, with no compensating consumption to balance it.

    When a player crafts an item, there is ideally a fuel cost that establishes the base value for the item, presuming resources are worth zero to an NPC vendor. That fuel cost can be recovered by selling the item to another player (not an NPC vendor). That means selling crafted items to players allows you to recover your costs, at least.

    When you involve an NPC into this economic model (bad idea, but a topic for another post), they pay however much, say 10g for a crafted sword. So, presumably, the fuel cost was 10g, and the crafter breaks even. Sounds good, right? Not so much, with what RG has mentioned here.
    THEN the sword enters the global loot table. At some point in the future, this sword (which, let's face it, no-one wanted, otherwise, why did they sell it to an NPC to begin with) now shows up as loot and ends up in someones bag.
    They take this sword and sell it to an NPC for 10g.
    THEN the sword re-enters the global loot table. At some point in the future, this sword now shows up as loot and ends up in someones bag.
    They take this sword and sell it to an NPC for 10g.
    THEN the sword re-enters the global loot table. At some point in the future, this sword now shows up as loot and ends up in someones bag.
    They take this sword and sell it to an NPC for 10g.
    THEN the sword re-enters the global loot table. At some point in the future, this sword now shows up as loot and ends up in someones bag.
    They take this sword and sell it to an NPC for 10g.

    I hope at this point, you're seeing the issue. This one item has now introduced at least 40g into the economy, when it only removed 10g in fuel costs. This is a very bad thing.

    Now multiply this by thousands of swords. And thousands of players. And potentially thousands of times per hour.

    When a player manages to create a bug or situation, in-game, whereby they can sell a single unique item multiple times to an NPC, this is typically seen as an exploit. By design, what's been outlined here, without a compensating mechanism, creates the same issue as this type of exploit.

    I completely recognize there are ways to mitigate this, and the first one that people typically come up with is "only let the item be sold x number of times before it's removed". All that does is make the problem less bad. It simply allows you to double, triple or quadruple the economic damage, instead of allowing the economic damage to never happen in the first place. Again, not so good.

    If looted items, regardless of the source, cannot be immediately equipped or sold, without being repaired, to add the fuel cost back into the item via repair, then that could be a possible compensating mechanism. However, no such mechanism has even been hinted at, for SotA, so I'm very concerned that everyone is thinking about how "cool" this is without considering that as described, without context or compensating mechanics, it's an exploit mechanic.
     
  4. Knoxinn

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    Looking at the Chaos tree:

    "Shapeshift: Caster becomes a random creature / animal"
    *You see Knoxinn shouting out "In the shape of a dragon!"*
    *You see Knoxinn turn into a bunny.*
    *You hear the angry bunny grumble something about things can't get worse.*

    "Summon Demon: Summons a powerful Demon that attacks everyone (including caster)"
    *Things just got worse...*

    So much to go over. That's a happy problem. :D
     
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  5. Mishri

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    Thievery is part of the subterfuge skill tree, it still hasn't been released yet. Lum said, "Soon".

    @vjek you get the same "generation" whenever you kill something in any other game and receive an item, it is exactly the same, except we get player marked items instead of generic ones. The balance is giving the right price for the item for the effort involved. obviously it can't be entirely random, they have to assign values to the item and then values to the loot tables so it's just like any other game.
     
  6. W1rcu2

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    I missed that, thank you. ;)
     
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  7. Rampage202

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    The crux to the mechanic you seem to be forgetting is the metrics system involved in tracking these activities, and the fact that item recycling cases will likely be quite delliberate and intentional.
    In the first place the devs have made it clear it's only supplementing and/or replacing loot that in other games would otherwise simply be generated "value".

    I'm really interested in seeing how the system and community develops over time.
     
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  8. LoneStranger

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    How is this any different than a randomly created generic sword? It still gets collected, it still gets sold, and another one is created somewhere else. The players are still adding gold to the economy. In this case, it's slightly worse, because no fuel is used to create it. Am I missing something?
     
  9. Luciferase

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    Heck ya!! Now we are talking! :)
     
  10. GimmeUOPlz

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    Wow tons of info TY for sharing Starr and everyone. Looking forward to reading through the whole thing after work. Especially about combat.
     
  11. Lord British

    Lord British Lord British SOTA Developer

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    Balancing the economy will be complex, regardless!
    But this recycle system should have NO effect positive or negative to the issue.
    We will just store items players created that other games will destroy, and use them as the generated loot at the time a "fresh" one would have been generated regardless.
    So its ZERO sum to the complex problem of economic balance.
    We just think real player crafted stuff, stuff that could have a literal history of monster slaying, potentially even ownership history, is more interesting than randomly generated stuff.

    LB
     
  12. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    Shaking as I need to play this now! :D

    Impressive!
     
  13. timedilation

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    Super cool stuff here. My spirits are raised.
    To be perfectly honest, these are the kind of updates we need more of. I'll just leave it at that.
    Thanks.
     
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  14. By Tor

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    A lot of us are looking forward to seeing more on the very controversial topic of combat. Starr said we'll have to wait a little longer for that update.
     
  15. Jatvardur

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    I'm going to be pedantic and "insist" that is isn't a zero sum. New items will be created so the total value of all items in the game will increase over time. However, that isn't really a problem. It roughly sounds like the economy will dynamically respond to player actions (and indirectly the number of players). It is fairly clear that as the number of players grows, then so too will the number of items floating around the economy. This normal and not a concern provided we don't have an excess of gold, which doesn't sound like it will be the case.

    Despite my pedantry I think the ideas your are suggesting for the economy are in the right direction.
     
  16. Drocis the Devious

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    Ya know what would be even better? If there was a history of who stole an item. :)

    READ: Why can't you guys ever talk about PVP and Stealing and Death Mechanics and all the cool stuff that seems to get pushed to the back of the bus every update?
     
  17. Mishri

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    It's a zero sum in terms of how any game now handles items and gold entering the economy. They are always generated from nothing in any game I've played. This generates it from a list of specific (player made) items instead of generic (or developer made) items. It doesn't change game economies as we know and understand them.

    Even crafted items are obtained via generated content.. where the items come from doesn't change it.. unless it has to come from a pool of items here and once it's depleted it's gone. like IRL.. but that doesn't make a fun game. You'll have the uber rich first people in the game and the poor newbies.
     
  18. Lained

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    Will there be a skill to reveal this information? Should I die and being unable to return to my corpse to retrieve my gear my Sword of Awesome that I've killed a thousand mobs with is later looted by another player, can said skill be used to identify its history and if so inclined choose to return it for a princely sum?
     
  19. UnseenDragon

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    So from what I gather skill points earned from doing the associated action. e.g. smithing gives crafting points, swinging a sword at a monter gives combat points.

    Can they be used on any tree? If you level up swinging a sword, can you spend the points on pole arms, or must it be on bladed? The former is how most games work, but makes less sense to me. I think this is especially true for crafting. In reality, crafters tend to specilize in one area with their practice in that area making them more skilled. It's odd if crafting a bunch of swords gives you points which can be spent on cooking.

    Just some thoughts,
    Joe
    The Unseen Dragon
     
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  20. FireLotus

    FireLotus Royal Bard & Master Dabbler Dev Emeritus

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    Because this is what we have ready for you guys to check out RIGHT NOW. It is the system we are actively working on as I type. We can not actively develop the entire game at the same time. It's a process. This system builds the foundation for combat (among other things) and is a stepping stone, and like all stepping stones, they are most effective when walked on in order.
     
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