Chris paraphrase: "Players need to sell better loot to NPCs"; yet they don't pay

Discussion in 'Crafting & Gathering' started by Vladamir Begemot, Nov 28, 2019.

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  1. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

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    So.... Crafters just need to suck it up and donate to the loot tables because the NPCs are too stingy to pay for the gear?

    I just read it on the summary of the Phamyns interview, so this is me paraphrasing a paraphrase, I don't know the timestamp so I haven't heard it directly.

    But my take is this, if @Chris wants the system to work, he needs the NPCs to pony up. This should not be a one way system, it is supposed to be a loop, and that loop includes paying the crafters for the high end gear, not expecting them to donate it.

    This awesome Bone Armor that @ldykllr just made me? Guess how much an NPC will pay? Go ahead, guess.

    208 gold!

    Seriously, it's downright insulting. What I'm hearing is "Suck it Crafters, fill up the loot tables for the Adventurers."

    Well, I say "suck it loot tables" until the NPCs start paying.

    (And don't worry @ldykllr, I'm not even thinking of selling it, I just wanted to see how insulting the NPCs could be today.)

    [​IMG]
     
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  2. that_shawn_guy

    that_shawn_guy Bug Hunter

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    I bid 416!!!!

    :)

    I get the feeling from what he said on the stream, that either the NPCs will increase their prices, better loot will drop in the starter areas, or both.

    It is difficult to do something like this without turning it into a gold faucet in one way or another. Personally, I'd rather see public vendors spread around the starting area. I'd still happily take a loss on my gear to help someone get started. But, 200 gold return for 5k+ gold investment.....
     
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  3. Vladamir Begemot

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    This one was 13k base price, not including whatever the special thing is (dragon neck bone?), if she nailed it all on the first try. More realistically it cost around 100,000 gold + to make and not have failures on.

    I don't expect the NPCs to ever pay that, but thousand, yes. It's a gold faucet for adventurers now, AND they are supposed to get free gear on top of it?
     
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  4. Vladamir Begemot

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    Step 1: lower the price for damaged gear, so at least it isn't an infinite loop. Edit: AFTER raising the price. That piece is still worth more than 208g even if damaged.

    Step 2: realize that by making this fair to crafters, they'll be selling phat loot to NPCs, and that goes directly into the hands of Adventurers, so the gold faucet on that side can be lowered to compensate, at least the amount of step 1.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2019
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  5. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    it isn't infinite anyway, it takes some durability every time it goes back into the table and it won't drop again after it hits a low point. this is why all the @Tazar wreaths i've gotten lately are 40/80.
     
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  6. Vladamir Begemot

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    And the buy price of NPCs should reflect it, that was my point.
     
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  7. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    it already does, just like drop gear.
     
  8. Elrond

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    Increasing npc price for crafted goods was the plan but then Chris changed his mind . I think in one of his streams he mentioned something about 3 bil gold worth of crafted items in the game ... now thats with current values of 50/200 gold er piece ...imagine that value increased just 10 times ...it will mean a complete crash of gold value . Without access to some real data i cant be for this measure ( even though id probably make a huge pile of gold ) . No matter how much they will increase the npc price the real problem will still remain...that is OVERPRODUCTION . If today costs 20k gold to make a chest armor and npc pays 200 gold for it ...say tomorrow npc will pay 5000 gold for it i assure you the cost to make that armor will also increase exponentially ...its a bottomless well which might end up ruining what economy we have left .

    Solution

    I think Chris had the right idea with crafted goods getting into loot table .... just didnt incentivised crafters enough to make it work... The only way crafters would sell good gear that might end up in the loot table is if they got something just as good in return ... that doesnt neccessarily means we gotta crash the gold market to make crafters happy ...so why not give crafters something in return that its usefull to them and doesnt crash the economy.

    We could have an NPC that accepts crafted items and in return for them crafters could randomly get gifts ...

    Turn in a lvl 19 item for a chance to get 19ok craft xp or a rare component obtained only from craft donations or some reputation for a faction ( when they come).

    We could even have a story attached to npcs of different factions ...like weapons are need it on the frontlines so on...who will help .... and in return you randomly receive one of 3 .

    You turn in your crafted items , get your prize , donated items end up in the loot table. No need to overinflate the gold currency anymore....guaranteed to remove all trash items from vendors .

    As a crafter id welcome something like that being implemented ...but the rewards have to match the donations ... rare components have to be decent and not something you find just by salvaging stuff.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2019
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  9. Dinsoo

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    lol!
     
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  10. Tazar

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    Of course - all the stuff I've sold has been full durability when sold to the NPC Merchants... Guess the Novia Postal Service or those Pesky Mobs are rough on packages to 1/2 way damage everything they touch.
     
  11. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    well, i keep finding dead couriers by the road...
     
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  12. Drilikath

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    Adding onto this, could even place a value on each stat mw/enchant/material, and have a ranking system, and even bank the points for higher rolls/tier stuff....
     
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  13. Anpu

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    If I had to guess, Chris is speaking about selling basic armor and weapons to NPC merchants. Not masterwork and enchanted items.

    I have not checked, but I should try and see what a basic Bronze 2-handed Mace sells for.... (not masterworked or enchanted, and obviously not exceptional). Curious how much you would make back from that. Obviously, be sure to sell the item to tag match NPC’s......


    EDIT: It's currently a complete waste of time and money to sell even a basic Bronze Weapon.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2019
  14. Bedawyn

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    I listened to the interview, and had to bite my tongue when that part of the discussion came up.

    The impression I got was that Chris THOUGHT he'd already made the changes to improve NPC prices, maybe started working on it a while back, but forgotten that the changes were never implemented. Seems unbelievable, but listening to the streams, there's a lot of "Oh, you mean that hasn't been done yet? Was a JIRA ages ago, thought it was finished by now" going on for lots of things.

    Since I couldn't guarantee that there weren't improvements to the NPC prices made before I started last spring (although he was talking about more improvements over the summer), I figured if anyone was going to point out that selling to vendors is still a losing proposition, it needed to be one of the veteran players who's otherwise happy with the direction of the game. Alas, no one did.
     
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  15. Vladamir Begemot

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    Player need to craft better gear and sell it to NPCs, is the summary of the quote. I don't think that means basic, even Bronze stuff. That's not really much "better".
     
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  16. Anpu

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    Is this what Chris thinks is rewarding the player to entice them to sell items to Tag Matched NPC's vendors:

    [​IMG]

    Yeah no.

    That's SIX bronze ingots, and 1 Rock Maple Timber......
     
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2019
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  17. Vladamir Begemot

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    4600+ gold to make that. Just donate it to the Adventurers Anpu! They are the important ones, after all.
     
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  18. Feeyo

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    Players feeding the loot tables is a silly and stupid mechanism to implement into a game. Why would you give your enemy the option to get better loot for free?
    Just implement a auction house and let the player economy feed itself.
    Looting, loot and loot tables should be filled by the algorithms behind the game.
     
  19. CICI

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    it's a player run economy! :)
     
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  20. Turk Key

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    We can never get back the amount of gold a high end gear is worth. It is even hard to get it back when selling to someone who desperately wants it, let alone to the NPC at the end of the block. Why is this? It's mostly the way the RNG is incorporated into crafting. There is too much wasted effort with wasted resources. We need to cut the waste. So catastrophic failures should be rare (including failures that make the item useless ie durability loss). A crafter should be able to work on an item over and over until they get it right. The RNG should be utilized to make this process time consuming and skill dependent. For example: To maximize strength on an item, the first enchantment should be easy. +1 strength at a 50% chance. The second enchantment for +1 strength would be harder and so on. Perhaps the maximum strength could be set at +15 and would require 15 steps in the RNG tree. The more skill you have, the better your chances at each step. A crafter would have a maximum total enchantment and masterwork number to distribute among the different effects to limit the final product to say 200 steps (example).
    This way every time a crafter sits down to make something, they work on that item till done. The item never breaks, or gets less durable.

    Special orders can be placed as to how the customer wants the 200 steps distributed. Depending on skill, it could take a long time to fill orders, but the price would really only reflect the time value of the crafter and not the atrocious cost of mats.
     
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