Gold Crowns of the Obsidians

That's what I proposed earlier.

"Regarding crafting, I hope we are moving toward a scenario whereas in order to repair an item to full durability you will require a COTO and skill level equal to the max durability.

Example 1: To repair gloves back to 50/50 you will require 1 crown and a minimum skill level of 50 in the pertinent craft skill
Example 2: To repair chest back to 150/150 you will require 1 crown and a minimum skill level of 150 in the pertinent craft skill .

Balance the game drops for those that want to grind out the crowns, let those of us that don't want to grind buy them, and utilize the above repair structure to ensure the crafter economy is successful. IMO win-win."

 

Yeah, I can see something like that working. It doesn't have to be exactly like that, but the spirit of it makes sense to me.

I also don't think it has to be like this for the system to work. Crafters are not going to make a living repairing stuff. It just FEELS better from an immerission/roleplaying/social perspective. Some people would just make alts and cut out middle men to be more efficient. But yeah, it feels better that way even though it's not really structurally necessary.

 

At what point does Gold Crowns make in game gold practically worthless?

 

That is an economics question requiring in depth analysis of gold income rates. Currently, I don't think 250g=$1 is anywhere close to making that happen.

 

Interesting. So you expect to gain someone elses product and result of work, whatever it might be, for free? Okay.

 

1GC = 250gp that's better (or worse based on your perspective) than the 2500gp that was mentioned earlier. As the exchange rate changes so rapidly it will certainly feel like the stock market.

 

This particular rate is fixed and set by the Devs, as it is the price NPC vendors are currently paying. Buying and selling between players will certainly be higher than that, but that is ok, since it is not creating gold out of thin air, like it is when NPC's buy the Crowns.

 

The problem is that person who just bought your epic plate now never needs to buy armor again- they just buy crowns to fully repair them. We will have to see how it plays out, but right now I would be inclined to just buy crowns each month to keep my epic plate fully repaired. Eventually this catches up in the crafting economy because few people need new gear since they just buy crowns. As an armor smith, pretty soon I don't see many, if any, sales.

I like crowns, I will use them and buy them to support this game. But they are way too tied to making gear permanent at the moment. I have hope this will be looked at to lessen the massive crafting disincentive it created.

Someone mentioned a very small max durability degrade to lessen the effect. Say, 2-5 max durability loss even when using a crown, but only to certain minimum (e.g., 50 is the lowest durability for a weapon). So you could still repair gear, but it begins to cost more crowns more frequently to drive folks to think about replacing at some point.

 

This and what @Roper Docholiday said.

Adding my 2 cents (not saying it's original but I'm not sifting through all of these comments) if you want to stimulate crafting and interaction, put in a Reasonable amount of decay and let the repair/both item and durability be GM skills related to the craftsperson that made them.

Take out the NPC vendors that will buy the coins for the new (is it copper?) currency.

Now that even the blind can see there are sustainable $ issues...though it's been clear for some time.... solicit some thoughts on what we, the community would be interested in further funding. As it is.. I see a lot of folks.. myself included that just aren't gonna move off of a dime more. The way this thing came about just leaves a bad taste in my mouth...

it's impossible for me to recommend to anyone at this point.

I guess what irks me most is that this can not possibly have come as a surprise to the team but (and sorry @Chris ... if I missed the part where somebody said it was always the model to require ongoing RL $ just to maintain your stuff... mea culpa) it seems that at every hangout or telethon it's looked like.. "Hey... no worried.. life is great.. have a shot and send some money cuz we LOVE you awesome guys"

I shall now shut up

 

Not to mention there are hardly any pvpers left ;-)

 

That seems like a problem Portalarium would love to have.

For the sake of argument, lets say that 100k people play this game. If crowns are so popular that 50k buy them regularly to repair their best gear, then Portarlium can simply raise the cost of crowns until that number goes down. Of course, the easier way to do this would be to sell more stuff for crowns until this number goes down. But the idea that so many people will buy crowns just to repair their own armor seems unbelievable to me.

What did you spend all your money on this week?
Crowns of the Obsidian so I could repair my favorite armor and weapons.
Interesting, why did you do that?
So I could go out and damage them some more.

Portalarium will attempt to balance this. It's not in their interest to destroy the market and lower population. It's in their interest to keep a very health crown repair to just buying a new item ratio. Over time they will be able to analyze the data and figure out where that ratio should be. In the beginning it will be very volatile.

I agree, that seems like something they should explore.

 

Problem is simple in most of MMO's TIME means plain& stupid grind. The real challange is to make TIME enjoyable intelectual expirience. I dont want to pay MONEY to avoid grind, I want pay MONEY for a game without GRIND.

 

Yes, I agree. But for me, that means roleplaying and pvp. Not "accomplishing" levels (even if it's not a grind).

I consider all the players to be content and the tools the game provides to be ways to interact with that content. Having successfully played MUDs that provided a world where interesting player characters could be recognized for their roleplaying and their interaction with other players, I came to this game searching for that type of "end game". But I'm not like most MMO players, I believe that roleplay should occur in a roleplaying game and that should trump everything else.

I've built Rats Nest with that in mind. I didn't come here to stand at a crafting station and count my virtual coin spreadsheet to see if I was "winning". So you're preaching to the choir on not wanting to grind in the first place.

Take away the crowns though and what did we have? One giant grind. I didn't see a lot of outrage about that. MMO players typically like grinding as a whole, it's only when you give people that don't like it a way to avoid it (in this case MONEY) that they freak out.

 

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but here is one solution for crafters feeling slighted by Crowns in the Add-On store.

Make it so items purchased with Crowns alone do not complete a crafting process. Meaning, you still need a skilled crafter to complete an action you have bought using Crowns. No AUTO completions. Anything thought of that might "replace" crafting needs to "include" crafting.

For instance: Max Durability

Max durability would be a process that takes materials, the damaged item and a skilled crafter of said item type. This process can be completed by farming/gathering required items/resources then going to the skilled item type crafter and giving them the materials to perform this action. This will be a source of great need and give crafters a purpose. Crowns could be used to purchase a material voucher that would take the place of farming/gathering. The buyer would still need to find the appropriate crafter to finish the process. This adds value, increases socialization, and can generate revenue for crafters.

This can be used for any crafting or enchanting etc. profession.

Do not devalue the time and worth of crafters. Some of my best MMO interactions was going to a player gunsmith, armorsmith or tailor and purchasing the expert items they took the time to perfect and make by having the best resources and skill.

Everything in balance even if it does include purchasing from the Add-On store.

Thanks!
~Cristiano

 

Apologies is this has been covered since page 21, but I gotta go somewhere and want to put this out there. It is meaningless to set the in-game value of crowns by an NPC buyback scheme. Crowns will be valued on one thing only, and that is the amount of time and effort involved in duplicating the armor you are wearing and weapon you are using by collecting the resources and rebuilding the items. The value of a crown for sale is what you are willing to pay to avoid all the hassle. A person will have three choices: 1) purchase crowns to re-establish item durability. 2) purchase armor/weapons from a crafter player. 3) build the armor/weapons yourself. The ultimate value of the crown, the crafter purchase, or the self made item is identical. No NPC buyback scheme can have any effect on that unless the NPC buyback returns more gold than needed for purchasing the armor/weapon, or materials for crafting. As things are currently, it takes 5 crowns to repair an armor set and weapon. This is about $5.00 from the store for the crowns. If the crowns are NPC sellable for 250 gold each as stated will occur soon, then the armor and weapon cost in ingame gold as sold on a crafter vendor will essentially be set at 1500 gold (5 crowns). Can anyone imagine a crafter selling a full set of armor and a good weapon for 1500 gold? NEVER. Crafters are out of business unless in game buyback in gold is equivalent to the real value of the armor set as determined by the time and effort the crafter has to put into it plus a small profit. The economy as defined by time and effort will establish the value of a crown, not an arbitrary fiddling by some outside agency trying to set the price of a crown. No one in his right mind would ever sell a crown for 250, 500, or 1000 gold.

 

Actually it doesn't repair it restors max durability (which no crafter is able to do). It keeps an old item from being destroyed by old age.

 

I'm not going to throw out a dollar amount here but i've already paid more for this game than any other game i've ever played, except maybe uo. so yes, you miss understand me, so perhaps this will clear things up, i mean not to play video games anymore, they have been ruined by the complaints of those who insult millenials, in my opinion..

 

but, it is a broken paradigm. socialism never works. not even in virtual reality.

 

in other words, Devs, you might want to Glorify the crafters... and not just the warror.

 

I think that is even worse than the original proposal, as "exorbitant" is a relative term. What is exorbitant to one player may be a drop in the bucket for another, so this is absolutely a pay to win mechanic that widens the gap between the haves and have nots. If Portalarium insists on sticking with the gold crowns as proposed, I think a fixed cap per item (max durability can only be recovered x # of times) is the best bad solution.