A case for "soft item" breakage

@Bowen - Are you just concerned about the absolute number of items laying around? People generally will just sell crappy weapons to NPCs at some point. Or leave them laying around to decay. It doesn't really effect the economy, since weapons decrease in value to everyone but the person who has been using it.

 

Gold makes more sense from a developer standpoint. It achieves the same goal but is easier and faster to code, test and debug. Neither option makes sense from an immersion standpoint when the cost increase is artificially induced.. which is how they're planning to do it. Otherwise the cost in materials would never approach the total materials to create the original object.

The economy issues aren't just from artificially inflated repair costs but artificially inflated item count. If items don't break the demand for new items will decrease as players will try to hold on to them as long as possible. In that respect the demand for materials goes down. Yet with breakage there will still be the same demand for repairs but also a stready demand for new items without the artificial increases forced on the players.

Ok So let's assume for the moment that both approaches really do have the same result on the economy. Would you rather have a system that feels natural or would you rather have one that feels unnatural, breaks immersion and is artificially forced on you?

 

@Bowen - No, gold doesn't achieve the same goal, because it has a different effect on the economy (gold sink rather than resource sink).

Item count increasing has little or no effect on the economy if the item value degrades, which they do (the item just gets strictly worse to everyone except the person who has been using that item).

Both have the same effect on the economy, but have very different gameplay values. The repair cost increasing idea is a neat one, and I see no problems with it, it's novel and opens a lot of interesting possibilities. I don't see why you think increasing repair costs is immersion breaking - like I said, repairing an old item might be more delicate and therefore result in more resource wastage.

 

@Alayth you're not usually going to sell your favorite weapon or armor to NPCs. You'll hold on to them for 'special occassions'. Especially if you're a PvPer.

Everyone who's ok with this seems to assume that the majority of players are practically minded people who will simply discard their items when they get costly to repair. I've yet to see this kind of behavior actually occur in an online game. Players are pack rats.. particularly when there's sentiment or though of future advantage in holding on to an item.

Speaking of weapons in particular.. if they become more powerful as they're used (which is what has been talked about several times) and/or the same through weapon affinity of the owner.. said owner isn't simply going to pitch it, sell it or leave it laying around to just decay. They'll use it. They'll farm gold or horde items to sell off to pay for those repairs beyond what you'd normally anticipate. They'll use it as long as possible and then they'll put it away to be used again later.. and they'll do this instead of commissioning a new crafted item for as long as they can.

New items mean starting over.. loss of affinity and any extra power their old weapon had gained. That is a deterant to replacing old, well used gear.

 

@Bowen - yes, that's the idea. That you retire your favourite items for a while, and then maybe pick them up again in an emergency. I was suggesting you would sell crappy items (loot picked up that you don't want). Why is having some weapons on display in your house, or sitting in your bank, a problem?

I don't see how having a collection of weapons that you've used in the past effects anything. It doesn't effect the economy in some qualitatively different way than having items break. Give me an argument for why you want things to break.

 

@Alayth There is nothing novel about increasing repair costs. I played in a system with increasing crafting costs for years. It's anything but a new concept.

And gold does achieve the same goal.. most players will not want to harvest materials so they will pay gold. Most crafters will not likely be able to keep up with harvesting materials.. they will pay gold for them. Not all materials will have to BE harvested.. they'll be in the market on NPC vendors if nothing else. Again, gold out of the pocket.

Plus horded items will not degrade in value as their repair costs and power obtained will not degrade. You're assuming the person using the item will simply pitch it.

So you don't think using up more material than it took to create an item in the first place isn't immersion breaking? You have a sword the weights 2 lbs.. it should never take near that amount of material to repair.. yet without a cap and increasing material costs you will quickly exceed that amount. What sense does it make to use 10+ lbs of material to repair a 2lb item? That isn't immersion breaking?

 

I really don't understand how you can NOT see the arguement. I've been saying WHY over and over.. this isn't about loot.. of course people are going to toss loot. This is a arguement for how this system will effect the crafter and craft based economy.

You don't see what I see. What I see is an artificial system that will have an adverse effect on the demand for crafters while promotin both item and gold inflation. With breakage the cost is in the hand of the crafter as it should be and will be determined by the player market.. not a forced system of artifical inflation.

 

@Bowen - Did that system also have an item increase it's value to the individual who wields it over time? This is an honest question, not trying to be facetious.

No, gold doesn't achieve the same goal, unless the only way to obtain the resource is by buying it with gold in the first place. Resources play an important role in an economy. You're making weird assumptions if you think there will be no harvesters and everyone will just buy ingots.

I am not assuming the item will just be tossed out. Either it is being actively used, in which case it is costly and requires ingots. Or it is retired, in which case it isn't playing a role in the economy.

To create a 2lbs wooden fiddle, you end up using a lot more than 2lbs of wood.

 

No it didn't.. and people still horded them and farmed gold to keep up with repairs. The only time someone wanted something new was when something broke because their crafted item was better than any loot. How much more so when the value increases over time for the user?

I didn't say there would be NO harvesters.. but you're making a weird assumption if you think the majority of the people are going to go out and harvest for the sake of getting their items repaired. Most folks are too lazy or impatient for that.. given the option they'd rather pay gold. It's faster, easier and getting the gold is typically more exciting than harvesting materials. Most players simply don't have the heart of patience for harvesting. It takes a special sort to do it well over a long period.

Look the point about material weights is that sooner or later the material costs will far exceed what it took to create the item in the first place.

 

Could they not have the option of, after a small number of "normal repairs", having an item fully break. Then using a brand new item of the exact same quality and type to scrounge parts from you fully repair the item to a like new state? The scrounged item is destroyed in the process and your trusty / rusty old weapon or armor becomes new again.

No increasing repair costs, no special rules to remember or abide by, no losing items players grow attached to and yet still manages to maintain a healthy crafting economy due to the constant need for items to scrounge parts from.

If they wanted to get more complex they could easily add a small number of additional resources if the weapon has been used long enough to have an affinity. It might even be a good way to involve other crafters, maybe in addition to the scrounged item you also need to throw a potion or two into the forge in order to retain the affinity?

Not everyone would want to pay the small additional cost every few repairs and would instead opt for a freshly forged weapon. Either way the crafter sells a new weapon and or piece of armor, and both types of customers will be happy.

The whole point of this system would be to keep it as simple as possible, remove hidden rules and decay and yet maintain a running economy that needs a constant supply of new items.

 

I think you're touching a couple other topics here that are worth their own discussions. I tried to starting a thread on salvage and component degradation but it didn't pick up any traction before getting pushed back to page 2. Just had a lot of folks posting new threads at the same time.

I believe the idea for weapon affinity may be based on a comment I made elsewhere. (Not that I'm claiming the idea is mine.. it just reminded me of this comment when I first heard the idea). That is even weapons of the same type have differences that the wielder needs to get accustomed to. Take two longswords for example.. they may both technically be longswords and you may be skills with that weapon type.. but differences in design are important. One might have a blade that's one or two inches difference in length for example.. whenever you pick up a new weapon you have to get used to using it. Whether they came up with affinity from that or from other sources.. *shrug*

but the point I'm making I guess is I'd rather not have affinity transferable for that reason but I like the idea of affinity itself. (Provided it's well balanced)

The one good thing about this particular issue is that it would not be difficult to test both scenarios of breakage & non-breakage. Both involve degradation and repairs. Toggling repair costs vs breakage should be relatively easy to do. The problem is it's hard to test long term effects on economy in a short term scenario.. but with 22k+ testers.. I trust there will be good feedback.

 

I'm sorry. But if I want to have to worry about weapon and armor degradation as well as everything else I'd join the army (IRL). This is a game and I don't want to have to worry about running somewhere just to sharpen a sword. Leave realism for real life, I get enough realism there. This is a fantasy world, let us keep it that way.

 

@Bowen - re: harvesters. You don't need the majority of the players to harvest, only some number of suppliers. There is a lot of incentive for crafters to also gather resources.

And I certainly hope the devs are planning on making harvesting engaging and not just a grind.

 

@Bowen Bloodgood

I was pretty sure one of the Devs mentioned something along the lines of weapon affinity, aka kill a few hundred Orcs with it and it gets slightly better for killing Orcs, being a possibility during one of the live chats. They didn't say it was going to work that way, just that it might be a possibility. If that's the case being able to repair that item becomes important.

You're right in that testing would be needed, I don't make any claim to my idea being perfect

@Duke Death-Knell

I agree in that its often no fun to go for full realism, and that's not actually what I was suggesting. The Devs have already made comments about item repair costs and floated an idea of them constantly increasing. The reason is you will eventually reach a point where you are more or less forced to buy new items, as the cost to repair you old ones is no longer worth while. This keeps crafters engaged and keeps new items flowing in the economy. Its important because they want crafting to be viable, which it can only be if items break or are otherwise removed from the economy.

My post was a quick spin of an idea for a system I felt met the goals of removing items from the economy and was engaging to the player at the same time. Don't feel like going through the process of getting an item repaired after it fully breaks? Cool just buy a new one aka the same as what the Devs would currently have you do, they are just thinking of using ever increasing cost to do so. Have a bit of an attachment to a particular weapon or piece of armor? Awesome, it takes a bit of extra work but you can keep it!

 

@Alayth But that still means that most players will be paying gold for the materials.. so it makes little difference for the majority if they're using up more materials or simply paying gold out of the pocket.

I'm not sure how engaging you can make harvesting materials.. depending of course upon the materials. Organic materials would be easier than inorganic.

@Elsad I was left with a different impression of affinity. That being difference than the weapon itself gaining power through use.. ie orc slaying. Rather weapon affinity would be more like a hidden skill the wielder obtains through use with a specific weapon. Though either is incentive to keep the same weapon for as long as possible.. even if it requires extra effort.

I would like to add the additional thought here that risk of breakage is further incentive to 'retire' a piece of equipment while it's still in good order. If you follow the natural progression of what I'm suggesting in the first post.. weapons won't just spontaneously break.. and avoiding it should be managable within reason.

A lot of the arguements on both sides are all about assumptions surrounding the game mechanics.. but I think the human component makes the non-breakage with increasing costs far to likely to unbalance the economy and promote inflation that will be hard to control.

 

@Bowen: I don't see problem with players buying resources with gold. Rather I consider it a good thing. The gatherers need customers too after all and by requiring materials for repairs, the DO get more customers. Whether the money goes to other players or to a scripted money-sink does make a BIG difference.

Also, if the material use of repairing increases, there will be a self-regulating effect on the resource market: If there are too many gatherers, resource prices will drop, making repairs to used weapons more feasible. As more people repair their gear at the cost of higher material usage, the demand for materials increases and an oversupply of materials is prevented, stabilizing the materials market. The same happens when there is an undersupply. And here I don't even consider players starting and stopping to gather themselves as market-prices make it more or less attractive.

The only problem would be the missing money sink, i.e. a mechanism that takes money out of the player economy. However, making repairs that money sink risks inflating the materials market. Also, immersion wise using 10 times the swords weight in iron for the full repair is still better than just outright paying money to a script...

Bottom-line: We need permanent sinks for all resources and services, in order to prevent an inflation of any of them and having such scaling effects helps stabilizing each of the markets without depending **solely** on players abandoning unprofitable professions.

As for people preferring an absurd amount of farming to keep up their weapons... Yeah, you will have those. But they will not really be able to do this forever, as eventually repairing their gear will cost more than they can farm by using it. Hence gear-clingy players will be forced to learn the hard way anyway. This is also why I strongly oppose the notion of capping repair costs for the sake of realism.

Of course permanent breakage would also solve some of the issues. But it would not provide the stabilizing effect on economy discussed above as it would take away the dicision from the players, whether keeping the weapon in active, everyday use is worth the cost.

Also it depends strongly on how the affinity will be implemented.
How long will it take until the repair cost exceeds the cost of new weapons?
How strong is the weapon by then?
Does it eventualls stop getting stronger?
How strong is trained gear by the time its maintenance cost surpasses that of new, higher quality gear (if available)?

TL;DR: I prefer repairing with materials for the sake of the resource market, having scaling repair costs without upper bound for the sake of stabilizing the resource prices and both separate and mixed-in money sinks for the sake of limiting the inflation of money. Also, the power gain due to affinity must not be TOO strong.

 

@Yael the point was for the majority of players it makes little difference which method is used to artificially increase repair costs.. which isn't the real issue to begin with. The problems that will arise from not having breakage and artificially increasing costs (regardless of what method is used) will still exist.

With breakage you still get the money sink as players will be regularly replacing cycling through their gear.. either as it gets retired or breaks. Except there wouldn't be the risk of artificial inflation by a set system mechanic.

As for farmers sure.. they can't do it indefinately.. but they will strike a balance and prolong their gear use for as long as possible.. it will still lower the demand for new craftables.

Recall breakage does not need to be a sudden event. Players will still repair their gear. Longer use increases risk. They will still need to decide when to repair the item if they want to avoid having it break.

I would much rather let the market decide costs. When that occurs the money will go where it needs to and the economy will balance itself.

 

@Bowen - your concern seems to be that you don't like the feel of an increasing repair cost, it feels artificial to you. Fine, that's a legitimate worry and I'm glad you voiced it in the forums. At the very least, perhaps the devs will take this into consideration to try to make the "feel" as natural as possible when it comes to implementation.

Beyond that, I don't think you've presented a real argument. I've explained how the items-break paradigm and the items-don't-break paradigm both provide the same sort of resource sink, and thus have the same sort of effect on the economy. We don't have the information to know if items-don't-break will slow down this sink, because we don't have the numbers on the rates at which things will happen (and numbers can always be changed). If the repair resource requirement grows really quick, there is a high demand for new equipment and new resources. In the breakage case, if the breakage point for armour is really high, there will be low demand for new equipment (and thus new resources). It's the rates that matter for the economy. Things like how much of a benefit you get from affinity matters too. All of these things should be balanced to make the economy work well, regardless of the paradigm.

 

No my concern is what artificial cost inflation and non-breakage will do to the economy long term. That is a real arguement. I've experienced this kind of system before and know how people behave. Just because we don't agree doesn't mean it's not a real arguement to be made. But if you're arguement is that the end result of both systems is the same depending on tweaking.. then doesn't it make more sense to go with the one that is more immersive? And why bother defending one over the other if there's no net difference?

 

@Bowen - People holding onto items means more repairs. More repairs means more resources needed and more repair jobs for crafters. How is this economically different than needing more resources and more jobs for crafters to create new items? This is what I've repeatedly brought up and still feel I don't understand about your argument. If you're right that people will hoard and hold onto equipment long after it's smart to do so, all that means is resource demand goes up. So, it acts as an even stronger sink, while creating the same number of jobs for crafters.

As I've stated before, I think the affinity+non-breakage is neat and different from a GAMEPLAY perspective, not an ECONOMIC perspective. I don't have a super strong opinion about this, but if given the option, I would go for the affinity+non-breakage. I'm not defending that idea as much as asking for your argument against it, and I feel like I still don't understand your argument.

Anyways, this discussion has gone in circles a few times now. I will read any reply you make, and I hope to be enlightened about your argument, but if not it's unlikely I'll reply beyond this even if directly addressed.