Proposal for upcoming MW/ENCH changes

Discussion in 'Crafting & Gathering' started by Blorius, Jan 10, 2019.

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  1. Blorius

    Blorius Avatar

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    Greetings Avatars!

    This is my first written down propsal/idea in Sota and English is not my native language so please don´t be too strict with me^^ (I hope this is the right forum section for it)

    First of all I want you to introduce my background a little bit and to share my thoughts about the past and current crafting/masterworking/enchantment situation. Especially the mining/blacksmithing part.

    I am a dedicated crafter with the intention of focusing the Blacksmithing tree. I enjoy running mines like elysium/etceter crag pretty much.

    The upcoming changes made me some worries though... If it is going to happen, that you can chose between several Masterworks/Enchantments above skill level 100, I have concerns about the economie of the game.

    To be more precise: Right now I have the feeling, that the whole playerbase offers too many ores. In nearly every little town you will find at least a few Vendors with lots of ores in their offers. Why could this be?

    Before the changes, when failed masterworks/enchantments was used to destroy the item, you had to use more resources to even craft a semi good gear because on the second improvemt attempt it failed from time to time. But on the other hand, it was very risky to go for a 3/3 or pure madness for a 4/4 and not many people were willing to risk a huge amount of resources to mostly end up with nothing.

    Nowadays you can craft basic gear very easily and can try higher improvements without too many risks. But what happened? Your improved item will not get destroyed on a failed attempt, of course. But you still have very big issues when try to craft a very good 3/3 4/4 etc. equipment part. In my opinion this is leading to a player market flooded with semi good gear that have several failed improvent attempts. This is very logical to me because you dont want to recycle/sell to the NPCs an expensive T2 material armor/weapon piece but try to get at least a few thousand gold from a player. But the player base is not as big enough to find customers all this beginner/mid level equipment. So you vendors become croweded and you stop crafting/using ores, too. In fact, if you try to upgrade your equipment and are looking for really outstanding masterpieces it is feeling like searching the famous needle in a haystack.

    Now to my big concern:

    If you try to change this by letting people decide the stats of the improved armor it will motivate crafters, of course. Now you can beat a part of the rng, at least. But it will become too easy to get a good 3/3 part in my opinion. You will often have some failed trys on the equipment part, of course. But even if the max durability of the fresh crafted item (with your stats of dreams) is kinda low, you can craft just another one within a few trys a few months later when your current equipment is depleted.

    So this could lead to an even bigger surplus of ores than we have right now.

    To sum it up, I think the problems are:

    - a rng factor that is too high
    - too many ores around
    - even more ores in the future
    - too many semi good items that you can´t sell to players but don´t want to recycle/sell to NPCs neither.

    But this shall not be a mimimi thread! I want to offer a possible solution, too.

    My proposal is to use the upcoming coto changes (1 coto = 0,01$) and to keep the random based masterworks/enchantments but with a chance to repead the item improvement process for materials + cotos.

    Lets explain this on an expample:

    You decide to craft a bronze plate armor and start with masterworking after crafting the item.

    You succeed on the first MW but dont get the stat you wanted. So the idea is to choose one of the other stats/attributes OR pay 1 coto (0,01$) and again 5 Silver ingots for another attempt. So you decide to roll the dice again and on your second try you get your favoured stat.

    My further proposal is, that you are allowed to roll infinite times. But it will become more expensive on the following masterworking levels. If you have a failed attempt, you should be able to reroll, too.

    For example:

    First masterwork: Each reroll costs 1 coto and 5 silver ingots.
    Second masterwork: Each reroll costs 10 cotos and 5 silver ingots.
    Third masterwork: Each reroll costs 100 cotos and 5 silver ingots.
    Fourth masterwork: Each reroll costs 1000 cotos and 5 silver ingots.

    with enchanting it could go the same way but with gold ingots instead of silver ingots.

    First enchantment: Each reroll costs 1 coto and 5 gold ingots.
    Second enchantment: Each reroll costs 10 cotos and 5 gold ingots.
    Third enchantment: Each reroll costs 100 cotos and 5 gold ingots.
    Fourth enchantment: Each reroll costs 1000 cotos and 5 gold ingots.

    Why using cotos?

    As far as I understand, cotos are some kind of "premium currency" and everything on the website store should be buyable ingame with cotos in the future. In addition devs are seeking ways to eliminate cotos out of the game. Cotos are tradable/buyable with ingame gold, too...so it is not a huge step in the pay to win direction in my opinion.

    Why do I like this way of crafting?

    The process of crafting good armors and weapons will feel more like a doable and steady progress without too big rng issues instead of a flood of semi good equipment.

    You could craft a decent 2/2 without too high costs but can upgrade it from time to time when you have farmed enough ores or igg.

    You can support the market with useful midlevel gear but can still try to work on the gear of your dreams without worries of ruining it.

    And of course it is a good way to use your igg and cotos.

    Additional thoughts:

    If this should lead to an oversupply of iron/copper or the t2 materials, you can simpy add some T2 and/or T1 ingots to the reroll progress.

    I hope you enjoyed reading my proposal and it would be great to hear your opinions on the topic aswell as positive/negative feedback :)

    Best regards
    Blorius vonHeldenburg
     
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  2. Phoenix007

    Phoenix007 Avatar

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    I think to use COTO in crafting process is not good. Mostly COTO is $ and personally I don't want to have a game with only $ to have good crafting or to facilitate the crafting.
    Currently the repair with COTO I think already the maximum in crafting process.
     
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  3. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    While I agree with (some) of what you say, I disagree with your solution. Even at small amounts of coto, essentially "monetizing" crafting chances using cotos as the "fix" to something that has been implemented as intentionally lacking (in offer to "sell" the solution) - is a big no-no, from me. It absolutely screams pay to win. It is irrelevant that you can buy/sell them with gold, a clear advantage is still offered to someone who opens up their wallet.

    Personally, I think we should have gotten rid of RNG years ago. I'm a bit disgruntled that "specialization" is going to be the band-aid that finally makes crafting viable/profitable, since without it the amount of waste is simply staggering. It has never made sense to me that I can have enough experience to grandmaster a skill 8 times over but I still haven't managed to figure out how to put the effect I want on it. I'd have no issue with there being additional components required for each stat choice or something like that, but randomness has always seemed like just lazy implementation if I'm honest. If you run the percentages of success chances vs. number of options in the RNG pool getting an item you want even at the 3/3 level you need to make hundreds of something. That's beyond ridiculous and always has been.

    The reason why there are ores everywhere is that you need to strip mine a small country to have enough ore to make a single set of armor that is even "close" to what you want, stat-wise.. Removing the RNG - by whatever method, specialization being the currently planned way to do so - will bring things a lot more in line with how they should have been to begin with. If it only takes a few hundred ore to make a chestpiece instead of a few thousand, yes, there will be economic impacts. But I still think we'll be in a better situation where we are now, where good gear is "priceless" and making anything with the intention of selling it is just a loss making proposition.

    I've been a crafter first and foremost from day 1. I do not sell crafted goods (except for leftoevers) because raw materials sell for more despite having 140s in the crafting skills. That's a pretty sad situation, and it correlates directly to the fact that I have no control over what I make. I start crafting an item, more than likely, its not going to go well and the bonuses aren't going to be optimal for -anyone-, so try try again. Maybe I can sell some of the not quite right pieces, but rarely can I sell them for what the raw materials cost - to say nothing of my time and fuels. This has been the crafting situation since the beginning and finally specialization (or the removal of RNG) is a GLIMMER OF HOPE for an actual tradeskilling economy, or if not, at least you're not looking at deforesting an entire scene 8 times to get enough wood to (maybe) make a decent bow.

    In your example, you offer a 'cash based' reroll when specialization's very purpose is to make these rerolls not needful by allowing the choosing of bonus. Essentially changing nothing except allowing crafters who want to throw $$ at the game to have better outputs. Or increasing the already ridiculous production costs even more by adding the need to buy/add cotos to the mix. I'd be absolutely fine if it was anything else, (such as using an additional component to force a particular bonus, as part of the recipe) but using the premium currency for it is going to put off a lot of people. Especially since what you propose is a "reroll" and not even a guarantee - more random bs! No! Currently Sota is already struggling with the pay to win stigma - indeed, this seems to be the biggest put-off for new players and the biggest negative in reviews, etc. - and has resulted in some pretty significant changes to how the store system works as a result, to try and change this perception. Adding cotos as a necessary component to crafting would be a huge step backward in reversing this perception.
     
  4. Blorius

    Blorius Avatar

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    But to be fair, cotos are lootable, too. But to avoid all possible pay to win effects you could keep the system as described and remove the coto part. I still think you need a way to dump a lot of ressources. And rng combined with greed to get a perfect 4/4 (or maybe even higher? hehe) without total frusttration is a good way for me.
     
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  5. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    I think once the stupid rng is gone we'll see a lot more resources being made into things people actually want, instead of vendor after vendor of unwanted junk. Its likely that demand for ore will drop as a result, so "mining for the express purpose of selling ore to make money" might become less of a thing. Its hard to predict really as there are a lot of variables. Being able to pick your bonuses is a good first step but you'll still need significant resources to get the exceptional (30% chance at level 145) and to pass the failure checks at high end. Not nearly as many as you need now, that's for certain.

    I think the reason why you see so much ore mined and sold is that you need thousands of it to do anything. If that stops being the case, then the incentive to mine is reduced, ore prices may potentially drop making 'mining for money' not the way to go anymore. Either that or spawn rates of resources will be nerfed even more to compensate. The recent nerf to mining already made it untenable (10 mins mining, 5 mins sitting with no ores in the entire scene to mine). Currently, I can get enough ore for 1, maybe 2 masterworks before its time for another 'waiting period'. I only hope that this "adjustment" is in anticipation of the upcoming crafting changes. That makes sense. Who knows? As I say, its hard to predict. I'd put a pin in trying to work out solutions to problems that don't exist yet at least until we see how things develop. Even then, I'd hate to throw cotos around as the solution. It gets people upset.
     
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  6. Scoffer

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    I believe that specialisation and the upcoming changes that will allow you to "imprint" a weapon for a certain damage type (undead bane, wolf slayer etc) will result in more gear being needed anyway. It certainly will for me.

    I'm primarily heavy armor wearing sword user and I typically run around with 2 sets of gear, chain and plate and usually 5 different swords (a 2 handed sword and 2 sets of dual wield). What specialisation will do for me is that I will now finally be able to customise gear sets based on what I want to do, something which has been too costly so far.

    As an example:
    For Upper Tears I will want 2 swords with banish undead on hit, strength, thrust, a chain chest piece with life attunement for casting banish, Int put in a few places so that banish hits harder and i will want the swords imprinted to do more damage to undead.
    For mysterious swamp I may want plate with earth attunement (stone arrow/fist), sword with whirling blades damage, coup de grace damage and strength and imprinted to do more damage to kobolds
    For troll hunting I will want fire attunement chest, rend on the swords
    For mining I want as high strength as I can get so I can carry more things.
    Etc Etc Etc

    The gear you generally see for sale at the moment are typically mistakes when someone is trying to get a specific piece of gear and didn't quite achieve it. With specialisation these mistakes should be less common and crafters like myself can actually make gear specific to what people want and more importantly, price them accordingly. We can move away from the general consensus that this piece of gear is "good enough" and actually outfit people with decent gear.
     
  7. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    This is also a good potential way to address the "gear durability argument."
    At the moment, gear is essentially irreplaceable - the probability of duplicating that 3/3 I'm using is minimal, it would cost a fortune.
    If we can make what we want, then they can open the durability loss floodgates, since things will actually be replaceable....just a thought.
     
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  8. Rowell

    Rowell Avatar

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    I've been playing since before persistence, and I have yet to see any form of COTO drop from a mob.
     
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  9. Black FjP

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    I have been playing for about 6 months and I have looted at least 10 cotos.

    I agree with kaeshivas assessment of the current economy, and also agree that if specialization actually does make it possible to efficiently craft gear for sales instead of the current system of just hoping to make some sellable failures while crafting your stuff, and if they actually implement real gear decay, a lot of these issues should go away. The loss of ore sales from less failures in crafting should be offset by the increase in gear decay, putting more burden on the adventurer to support the crafters, while also allowing said advemturer to find the specific gear they want rather than the proverbial needle in a haystack that we have now in the gear pool of failures.
     
  10. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    Weighing in on "cotos as loot" -

    I have over 8000 hours played on steam, which correlates more or less to post-persistence time (I started playing actively a couple months before, but don't always use steam launcher because sometimes it is uncooperative, etc.) While certainly not all of that time is spent "killing things that could drop cotos" it is a reasonable indication of my time investment.

    [​IMG]

    Every non-gold coto that I ever got as loot got incorporated into a large deco project - I never used these for anything. The gold cotos that drop in game had a 'value' of 250gold and therefore did not stack with the store-bought cotos so I put them as deco as well.

    When the change went in last release and turned all of them into gold cotos, as part of my 'last ditch bundle effort' I gathered up all the decorative cotos to see how many I had, and I had 82.

    So, yes, they drop.
    82 in 8000 hours of play - I don't think is sufficient to make them a "required" component for, well, anything.
    Particularly since, like so many other things, there is no reliable way to "go out and farm cotos because you need them." It is a completely random, extremely low % world drop. If you needed 5 cotos for something, and relied on fighting things until you randomly got 5 as loot, it would take you weeks. This is not viable.

    Consider the dropped cotos a small, tiny bonus. Not a reliable way to acquire them. You're supposed to buy them (or buy them from other players who have bought them), that's the point of premium currency. Based on this, requiring them for core gameplay is going to ruffle the P2W feathers no matter how you go about it. Using them for major repair already ruffles those feathers.
     
  11. Blorius

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    Thanks for all the posts and your opinions about the topic so far! :)
     
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  12. Violet Ronso

    Violet Ronso Avatar

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    These are precisely my thoughts, and I will also be able to ask crafters a specific item for a reasonable price. I dislike crafting to an extent, the only things I like to craft myself are my spears and halberds, so while I wear bone, chain and cloth armor, those are all things I need to pay for, and have never managed to get the pieces quite like I wanted them. Having the option to pay a GM crafter to get the MWs and Enchants I want will greatly be appreciated.

    I also think this will help with resources spending. Considering I won't expect to need at least 300 bronze bars to get 1 or 2 decent spears, I will make them more often. So instead, gear could be hit with lower durability and a maximum amount of greater repairs before it eventually destroys completely and I wouldn't mind, considering I would know I can get that same spear again if I want.

    So I say, let us choose our MWs and Enchants, but reduce an items durability so it is finite!
     
  13. Elrond

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    Chris had the right idea with rerolls ( except the part where xp costs scale based on crafters level) . Even If specialisations allow a player to choose a specific masterwork or enchant ..crafters will still need to pass the failure rate ..i think here we can have a reroll feature . When you fail a masterwork you are asked if you wanna try again without losing item durability ... The costs to not lose item durability on failure could scale with each repeated fail on same item .

    For example

    - first fail reroll 500 gold 5 silver or gold ingots and 500 craft xp
    - second fail reroll 1000 gold 5 silver or gold ingots and 1000 craft xp
    - third fail reroll 2000 gold 5 silver or gold ingots and 2000 craft xp

    More gold and materials out of the economy ,craft xp sink and better items .

    Or simply add new craftable tokens that need gold /silver ingots and craft xp to create . Everytime you fail a mw/ench a token is lost from inventory but item is saved from losing durability .
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2019
  14. Spungwa

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    I'm against rerolls unless the cost is very large.

    It would lead to everyone using 4/4 and them not being the exception. This would have huge implementation in the balance of the game.

    The only way I think you should be allowed rerolls is if a reroll takes you back to the beginning, removing ALL previous MW or ENC, whichever you are doing.

    This would keep it still very rare to have a 4/4 with high durability.

    My experience of balancing stuff via cost in MMOs is generally that it doesn't work. Never underestimate your player base.

    Case in point, in Eve when titans came out they were designed OP because they cost 5 times the cost of a station and took months to build. They estimated there would be like a max of 10 in the game. After 2 years fleet battles had single fights with more than 10 titans, and the nerf bat had to deployed.

    Regards
    Spung
     
  15. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    I have 3,000 hours on steam record and only received 3 cotos as drops I have played since release 0 aka chicken room.
     
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  16. Jackblack

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    Because they are so expensive that people would rather go get their own. stick them on vendors at 20 or 25 and see how many are still about a month later.
     
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