Chris the economic impact of artifacts like Vex Wand

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Elrond, Jan 14, 2020.

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  1. Boris Mondragon

    Boris Mondragon Avatar

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    Let’s add a decent one and two handed swords (yes that blades skill everyone screamed “OP” and has been forgotten). While at it we also need a chain and plate equivalent of the bandit armor. Let it be crafted so we don’t screw blacksmiths as we have screwed other crafters with the bandit armor/Xen/Envy bows and Vexlyn wand. Add some of the seldom used mats like Elven/Troll/Undead essence to make them. Help the crafters and gatherers that way. Easy solution to a festering problem. R/Boris/El Pirata
     
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  2. Vladamir Begemot

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    The war on crafting and trade continues.
     
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  3. jschoice

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    One of the biggest issues to plague this game is trying to be something everyone wants and in doing so it fails often at making people happy. Whether it is a single player RPG or an MMO and in this case a player driven economy verse awesome loot drops trying to do both often leads but sides disappointed.

    Part of the blame is the evolution of the gaming world where often crafting is a profession either no one does or is made so simple that everyone crafts there own stuff. I was hoping that shroud was going to be a system where gatherers fed refiners who fed crafters but once again a dev team underestimated a player base drive to do it all on their own.

    As far as artifacts go, I wished they would of stuck with dropping rare components for high level crafters to have a chance of making a artifact instead of the current system of combining lower level artifacts to make a higher level one. For example dragon blood if put on a weapon will make it a green level weapon of dragon slaying and as the person kills more dragons it can rank up to a legendary or epic weapon of dragon slaying. This could be done for all mob types.

    Hopefully something can be done to keep crafting important to the game. Some of the things people gripe about in shroud was never an issue in UO like going to player vendors. With today's technology I do think a system to track vendors and prices would be nice but having to travel to the vendor to purchase is still nice. I especially enjoy a well decorated shop.
     
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  4. Spungwa

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    Oh I hope so, i think this is the good comprise/middle ground. Gives good drops in the loot tables. While still using the crafting mechanics to have the best gear.

    Though I would prefer this to be along the lines of essence rather than the RNG of salvage. The excitement of the rare drop goes when there is still another RNG roll to pass before you have the rare item.
    I would rather this be that you get 10 (or whatever) items with the tier 3 component, use a recipe and that gives you the (guaranteed) the tier 3 component. You could also have a rare drop that just straight up drops the component (no need to salvage). This way you have the lottery win excitement for the latter, but you see/feel progression as you work towards the 10 if RNGesus is not on your side.


    Regards
    Spung
     
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  5. Spungwa

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    I do and don't agree with is.

    I don't agree IF

    It is ensured that no crafted item can be crafted using ONLY tier 3 components. So in your above example, you have still had to choose and craft which tier 2 spear head to use.

    If you can, like the envy bow does with artifacts, craft the weapon using only tier 3 components then yes this is using very little of the crafting system and it becomes a simple assembly.


    Regards
    Spung
     
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  6. Ancev

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    In order for player crafted gear to ultimately be the best gear available, artifacts must be salvaged with a rare chance to get a crafting component that can be used in existing recipes. imo.
     
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  7. Spungwa

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    Tell that to the beetle carapace market. We are not full of carapacian cloth thread and hard leather.
    For metals yes, as getting the materials for the tier 2 materials happens when harvesting the tier 1 materials. No one is getting cotton by collecting it from the wild while you can grow it by the thousands in much less time. You can't get beetles while harvesting animal hides.

    To me the answer to this, is to put limits on the relative prices of the materials. If you have a mechanism that, somehow with some lore that makes sense, to turn 1 material into another, but not at one to one.

    Made up numbers for a worked example, Catnip has the data to make these what is appropriate based on the relative supply rates of each material.
    So for example if you can turn 10 suet into a synthetic beetle carapace then the price of beetle carapace can only be 10 times more than suet. When one of the materials becomes too rare, it becomes viable to use a lot of the cheaper material instead. Then as the price of the cheaper material goes up (as demand has increased) so can the price of expensive one.
    But this type of mechanic stop one materials getting completely out of whack as it is the supply bottleneck, while the rest of the materials become worthless because people only demand the one type of item.


    Regards
    Spung
     
    Last edited: Jan 15, 2020
  8. Elrond

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    Mossy handle + unicorn horn or torc axe blade ..will yield a superior weapon then using crafted components.....assembling...not crafting.... but yea i dont expect everyone to agree with my assesment.
     
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  9. Spungwa

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    Oh do know that there is already recipes that can be made with only tier 3 components, but things CAN change (not saying they will or the tech could be too much work), but there could be a restriction put on recipes for only 1 tier 3 component for an item, so you have to make a choice which component you want to use the tier 3 for.
     
  10. Sara Dreygon

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    Ugh... smh. My constantan plate does very well for me until I can head to a zone and get an uberplate set in a day then I may as well destroy it.
    1 day in a zone or thousands of ingots, time, and effort... constantan will be worse and require more work and effort - just like bone and hard leather when bandity came out.
     
  11. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    I agree Elrond, the artifacts are taking for sure away from crafting sales.... Enchanting and masterwork imo is not crafting but enhancement or a boost. perhaps maybe they should look at breaking apart artifacts and or putting in items that allow us to deconstruct artifacts to get special materials to add into our building that will boost our wands to artifact level. Then it would make our "crafted" items on equal level and also take more artifacts out of the game and give value all around. @Chris
     
  12. Girlsname

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    Pretty sure it was said that wands and staffs ect will take durability from casting spells/magic damage...

    So that pimp vex wand won’t last you forever.

    a couple rings of fire and a ply session or two and it’s kaput.
     
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  13. Brass Knuckles

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    I always found it interesting my mage gear lasted for ever before needing to do a major where a weapon like a bow or a mace etc burns up very quick like. You have a very good point though with what you have said a 30/30 wand can last a year with the way things are currently a 90/90 sword with heavy use and repairs might last a few months. I am glad reagent costs have come down so much,it make the durabily change more tolerable.
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2020
  14. SaltyPerro

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    Well we did have a stage when crafted items were better than the artys. I think crafting needs to have an enhancement at this point to keep pushing the envelope. I don't do any crafting, but all for them getting an upgrade to compete with artys. Currently as a fire mage I have no reason not to use a legendary undying and rare vex. My old +21s don't even come close.
     
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  15. marthos

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    I agree with Elrond. The game is having a bit of an identity crisis here where it wants a vibrant economy with crafting at the center, but also wants the epic loot drops from boss monsters. The current economy we have is completely broken because we have very little demand for a ton of goods. Gear enters the economy at...I dunno...maybe 300 times the rate that gear leaves the economy? And the biggest reason gear leaves isn't from decay, but because you upgrade it to something slightly better. It's also broken because a single player can do everything. So we have an "economy" that has no demand and no dependence on cooperation between players.

    Here's what I would do

    1) Remove artifacts. Instead, have boss monsters guarding a higher quality tier of resources that can be harvested to create artifact-level gear.
    2) Players should be self-sufficient enough to supply themselves with low to mid level gear, but they should not be able to make high-end gear without interacting with the community. To that end, specializing in a crafting tree is the only way to harvest, refine and produce the new artifact-level gear. Restrict players to one crafting specialization (except in offline mode, then players should be able to do it all).
    3) Drastically increase the rate at which gear breaks down to create more demand for crafted gear (except in offline mode, gear could last much longer).
    4) For specialists, drastically increase the quantity that they produce. For example, prospector specialists might get 5-10x the ore per node.

    The target with these changes would be that players can do everything themselves but only to a certain extent, and it will take that player a long time to get enough materials. This will encourage players to find others with complimentary specializations. For boss fights, after killing a dragon, you would want a specialist prospector to get mine the "Dragon Iron" nodes that he was protecting. He'll get you 5-10x as much ore as a non-specialist. Then, that prospector would take his ore to a specialist in smelting to get more ingots. Finally, the ingots go to a specialist in sword making that would be able to make an artifact-level longsword. This longsword won't last months, but rather a few days, which spurs demand to once again go on a dragon slayer adventure.
     
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  16. Nexus-6

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    Its extremely risky for low populated games like SotA...
     
  17. the Lacedaemonian

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    I really like the way your opening point starts off. I do. But some of the follow-up actions you suggest have possibly unforeseen consequences that you may not have considered.

    1) You can't remove them per se. That's impossible. There are too many existing items. To achieve this idea, it might be better to borrow from UO and have a gold-sink such as a point system for turning in high-end items that allows you to get an ultra-rare, ultra-cool, USEFUL piece of gear. A single piece. And you must choose. I think of the Phoenix Armor from UO. Alternatives could include something like a permanent buff to a chosen skill or stat that essentially gave you X amount more skill without XP cost. I suggest this because removing gold from the "ecology" serves the purpose of deflating overall costs and increasing perceived value in smaller integer numeration. Which is good for new players at the very least, and better for the deeply invested players who want to feel more satisfaction for their hard work, dedication, and time.

    2) The classless system of the game makes this also impossible, anyone can do anything, only limited by their dedication to developing said skills + (somehow) gaining the resources to develop said skills. Being your own crafter is unfortunately the best way at the moment to do everything in the game. That is because gear is (imo) way too important. Also (imo) to mention gear being more important than skills by even 1% seems somehow wrong. I propose something to balance this. Maybe a third factor should become equally important beyond gear and skills, possibly something that cannot be assisted by help from another. I'm thinking along the lines of activity-based development of a player's stats to force a weak "specialization into a 'class'", aka, focusing on one stat, or opting out and remaining a "generalist". By choosing the path of Strength (Courage), Dexterity (Love), or Intelligence (Truth), something interesting could result.

    3) This wouldn't be problematic. Unless there was no potential windfall from killing tough monsters hours on end. I suggest bonuses to loot for having larger parties. Put some weight on individual's DPS for the drops and have a low-end "lottery" format for the weakling in the group to get some loot-love too. Gear should be dropping from mobs and artifacts aren't the best option. I suggest extra-high durability drops that are good starting points for crafters to improve. Maybe even rare drops that allow the crafter to choose exactly what they want to enchant and masterwork onto the item, with reasonable limitation.

    4) Here be dragons. It's difficult to buff or debuff the gain for crafters or otherwise obsessed/devoted people, time is the ultimate arbiter in an MMO. Who has more and who has less is what is the real fulcrum of balancing such a game. You have to imagine that some people are hellbent on playing 16 hours a day, every day, to be on top of their imagined mountain. So. A finite limit is the rule for now. This is how the economy changes over time, resources being introduced at an accelerated rate is nothing but bad. I suggest that the better idea is to improve the range of materials and their properties, and more so decouple the places to gather them from the current limited places. Make random encounters more dangerous and FAR more rewarding. If your idea of 5-10x the reward of ore is to be feasible, make in a random encounter with an unknown difficulty that requires multiple characters in a party to survive. That seems like a decent idea.

    Thank you for putting me to task and thinking that through.

    I'm very open to thoughts on this.

    Cheers!
     
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  18. King Robert

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    I was collecting Ashen forever - which makes amazing focus heavy wands. But I now just hold them as Thunder Branches make better wands than Elrond or other master crafters can make with a high end drop material like Ashen. I think @Chris should raise the attunement available to Crafted Wands to help make Crafting Great Again. I miss Ashen wands; but 26 att vs 62 for a Thunder legendary is too large a delta. Allow wands to get to 50 with enchanting by a high level crafter and ashen’s focus will make a choice for players. More att or focus bonus?
     
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  19. ShurTugal

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    It's because the power of the item stems mostly from the enchants and masterworks An item crafted bare without the enchants and masterworks is pointless. I get their point and it makes sense. A well skilled crafter can do wonders to an artifact and that is where you shine. Not with the base model.
     
  20. Barugon

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    I don't think that artifacts should be enchantable or masterworkable.
     
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