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Crafting, Gear, Economy, Sustainability as we approach a final wipe and eventual launch

Discussion in 'Release 29 Feedback Forum' started by Lace, May 6, 2016.

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  1. Lace

    Lace Avatar

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    One of the items in the game I find advantageous during pre-release is the ability to go to a lower zone to harvest. In most AAA games, there is no reward for going into a lower zone. Here however the only way to gain the mass quantities of items needed to craft things is to just blast through lower tiers with no risk. (the sandbox the game promotes)

    Because the model and the repeated statement from telethons, posts etc is that all nodes should be guarded, I have to ask how is this logic really working. I think not, you level up and then gather what you need in mass quantities in lower zones rather than hunt in your hunting range of skill.

    This is because there is no tier separation in armor. There is not a diverse level of materials to be gathered in the various skull tier difficulty areas. This of course would mean more time in itemization, but would prevent high level characters that are crafters farming low areas .. which I myself do now.

    Going back to basics, games like everquest 2 etc fixed this issue by itemizing each hunting tier level. For example A 1 skull area would produce iron only. Skull level 2 would produce copper. Skull level 3 would produce perhaps nickel, Skull 4 would produce tin etc. The base armor would be of those mats rather than combining those mats for a final product. Or those final products would have much better stats than they currently have.

    I know we are not other games but our gathering life cycle and crafting lifecycle is very limited by the choices presented currently.... Just go farm low levels for quantity, farm some high for the rares and there is no challenge left.

    I know the cry to be pure gatherers has been raised again and again and in other games you could do that risking death if your adventure level didn't match the tier of items you wanted to get, but you could skirt that based on mob pathing in those games, here it is all guarded but the various tiers have no distinction, no risk and if you do risk it there is no reward.

    I see this as problematic for a sustaining game. No item destrcuction, well I buy it once I am done, I don't chase tiers with my budget. As a crafter over time I will see a decline in my time spent harvesting versus sales because of non new player influx and no gear destruction. I will keep harvesting but sales will decline because everyone has the best player crafted gear for their build because they spent the time to gather and craft or they bought it one time.

    While these are 2 distinct issues I find them related with this game having no gear progression or node progression as it currently stands.

    I know there is a an outcry for the single player standalone with the *40 hour* gameplay for story which is a one time price point, there is a cry for sandbox which is what we have now with no gear progression based on components, but we sell items in the add on store at thousands of dollars (used to fund the game which I get) , but I don't feel the depth of the tiers is equally reflected to the masses in general for a true character progression.

    I am sure others have voiced similar concerns but we are less than 3 months to final wipe and the gear progression as a crafter and a hunter concerns me. I re-listened to the telethon today while at work and nothing in there showed a spark of addressing this issue. I have heard LB in interviews speak of perma death etc which would help some of this, but that is not something I signed up for and would make me upset, it is not the solution, it is yet another kind of game play and price point for purchasing.

    I asked the question when will player crafted gear surpass royal founder gear, the answer in the telethon was well it does with the modifiers, I tried to clarify in IRC but it was lost in the noise that what I wanted to see was a base stat increase. I am hunting in tier 5 with my royal founder and a nice bronze weapon. The founder/benefactor gear should be a leg up in the early tiers not sustainable to tier 5, the highest tier in the game. The base on the player made should be increased so your royal, founder, benefactor gear is eventually outgrown, and not just outgrown by applying modifiers, or it should be lowered on this pledge gear. Heck as it stands now, some 'expensive gear made' has lower base stats than the RF/Founder/Benefactor gear and just adds some modifiers. (i am talking resistance etc as it shows in the tool tips-which could be bug on display or actual math use.)

    Still a fan.
    Just something to think about.

    I want to play this game for years, but the current model is 'beatable' to the mindset of many very quickly, and that is said from taking several characters with no 4x or the now 2x up through the tiers and making my own set of the 'best' gear for my playstyle in a relatively short amount of time. This means population decline which equals less fun for me.

    Not meant as a demand, an outrage, just issues I see based on my tiny spotlight on myself and what I am seeking in a game.
     
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  2. Bowen Bloodgood

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    I've been beating this drum since they first announced their plans regarding no item breakage. The design goals that need to be met is 1: players need to feel they can wear their gear without risk of losing it in the middle of combat.. and 2: Gear needs to have enough longevity to have a meaningful history.

    Personally I believe it's possible to achieve both of those goals and retain risk of breakage. It's just a matter of balance. My favorite solution involves regular maintenance. A well kept item will never break.. but people will be lazy and forgetful and when durability drops below a certain point.. risk of breakage.
     
  3. Lace

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    I also one to interject one more thing into this and that is taxes. A person can set up lets say a Blacksmithing shop on for arguments sake a town size lot (a non founder with no tax break). With R29 I think the taxes are 400 day .. call a month 30 days, that is 12000 a month. Based on my current experience with a limited amount of players etc that can be dfone by some players in the first month but digs HUGELY into profits even more so than listing 5 items on a public vendor in one city at a time, you could actually do 5 per vendor in multiple cities --- the issue is the upfront cost to do this and losing that if it is not sold)

    I see many coin sinks but the only winners are tax free lot holders in prime locations. This makes the game cater to folks like me who backed it, not those that come in fresh. We cannot survive based on our spending whims and backers. Those who did not back the game will have no reason to stay with the game if they are of the same mindset of being a crafter like me. They won't be able to afford a house for months, not sure how they get their own vendor if they did not back the project, they can only sell 5 things at a time on a public vendor, and meanwhile others flaunt their affluence making the game and I hate to say this Pay to Win.

    It seems unbalanced on the land thing. I know you want to make land precious as game design, but you should see by your POT sales it is what folks appreciate in the game, the taxes feel crippling and a double whammy at their current rates for anyone that is not a backer. I don't feel new game players should get all backers did, but I don't feel like they should have to invest 3 months to catch up either. (and I don't think they will either in MPO)
     
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  4. Bushmaster

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    This should be a fact! If you want to keep your nice stuff, you need take care of it. If you forget, then you will soon see that it is broken.
     
  5. Bushmaster

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    To look at it in the light, I dont think all is doom and gloom. A new player (after wipe) will first have to buy a lot from the vendor at 120,000 gold for a row lot, then pay 100 gold a day. This is not that far fetched from any game for a player that did not pay any real money to be a backer. Yes we have the advantage of rent free prime locals, but we paid for it.

    I have played other free to play games and have worked my way up to owning a house in a prime spot without paying any real money (and not playing 40 hours a week to do it). Just like in UO back in the day we all started from nothing if we did not have a friend that would rent us a trunk on their front porch, and worked our way up to a keep.

    I do fear there is much to be done with the crafting system yet before launch (not final wipe) to balance the crafting economy environment in order to make things smooth for all.
     
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  6. Lace

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    yes but based on what I see now .. if you were a new player and you see all these folks with plots and homes and vendors and then realize it will take you 3 months to a year to catch up, how likely are y0u to play (because in your mind you are left behind)

    Any non backer is left behind in what I see .. again not trying to disparage .. just saying.
     
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  7. Bushmaster

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    I see your point Lace, but I feel that like one of them at one point I see the glass as half full. They will see what they can get if they work or pay for it. Start from the bottom and work your way up to king., but there will be the few that will see what they missed out on and wish they could have started with out we started with. This has never stopped them from trying.
     
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  8. Bowen Bloodgood

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    By this same logic anyone who starts playing a year after launch should feel the same way. So how likely is anyone to play if they didn't start at the same time as anyone else? If any player is so easily discouraged just because another player has more than they do.. they're not going to last very long regardless.

    It should not be about catching up to everyone else. There will always be those who have more time to play.. or who started playing sooner. Even more so a year from now.
     
  9. Elnoth

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    Hi @Lace

    Just want to point out that on the current build to get an item to the best state which is item +++ (three enchants) you would on average destroy 21 items per one successful creation of that +++ item. This is because the first enchant has a 90% success rate, the 2nd enchant 50% chance, and the third layer of enchant just 10% chance. This will destroy ALOT of items as people upgrade their gear, creating a market for more gear to be crafted.
     
  10. Arkah EMPstrike

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    A shop owner looking to maximize profit is not going to desire a toen lot if the tax is higher than a row lot.

    And resource nodes do have varying tiers of difficulty. A high level gatherer will do much better withhigh level resource areas because of the quantity in proximity and the typeof resources dropped from each node. They dont all drop everything youll need
     
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  11. Crazy Phil

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    I personally despise this kind of route because it forces crafters into combat to advance. I'd rather see more nodes or higher yield nodes in more challenging areas. Less in cakewalk areas. Give crafters the opportunity to produce great stuff for combatants while avoiding combat themselves. For higher yield, they'll just have to be more careful and clever.
     
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  12. Waxillium

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    We do have tiered nodes with different loot tables at the moment.
     
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  13. SmokerKGB

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    I dis-agree with this assessment. There is NO "mass quantities" coming out of lower level zones, quite the opposite. Lower zones give 1 ea and rarely meticulous and even rarer give Tin or nickle. There are fewer trees or cotton or garlic, and I have found most all nodes guarded by some critter, even though you may be able to slay them easily, there is not much product in a lower zone. Even the Owl's Nest, which has the highest concentration of mining node, gives diminishing returns after a couple of passes through the cave. Longer and longer re-spawn times and dynamic spawning take care of that. My exp usually decreases when in lower zone as the nodes don't give any exp comparable to my level, so it's not worth going there.

    It's actually the node % you should look for as the lower the % the higher the exp, and higher zones, I've found, give many more meticulous collecting and nearly always give extra resources, like sooty bark or pine resins or borers which have no use yet, but sell for a high price.

    If one was adventurous, and took a good look around, the higher zones are becoming quite full of nodes of every kind. Brighbone Pass has taken a major overhaul in nodes, now my favorite place for gathering and it's a 5 skull zone. The prison by Desolate has much copper and treasure if you bother to look. I haven't yet ventured to Graff mine, but I hear rumors it's tuff now and gives all copper & gold, plus gems if you make it to the very bottom. If you don't use them, sell them... All the mine have high yield nodes and many critters to challenge your skills, the obsidian forge was very challenging and has many silver nodes. Ele's of all kinds are in the lower levels of all the newer mines, and some mine have hidden secret areas well, you could walk right by them, and newer players wouldn't know they were there.

    For me, there's really no point in going into lower zones to gather in... there's no reward, no challenge, no exp...
     
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  14. Vallo Frostbane

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    What the OP says it just this game world makes no sense at all and is flawed beyond everything if u consider player interactions and want to be somewhat immersed in a game. PVPers will avoid this game already, so why not get rid of PVP completely and label the game what it is.. A theme park for Roleplayers with nice housing!
     
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  15. Arkah EMPstrike

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    A issue i am seeing at the moment is that suicide-mining is a thing. Theres 0 drawback to dying, running to a mine, ressurecting, then entering to mine and exiting, clicking world map when your overloaded.

    Another(and probably the biggest) big issue with the economy is that there is no supply of low end gear. all gear i see sold is the highest end stuff, or NPC bought stuff. and since its so expensive to make high end stuff at low crafting levels, the price range is in the tens of thousands because people are burning through hundreds and hundreds of fuels attempting ot craft them.

    And since the high end stuff doesnt break, once people have it, it costs nothing to completely repair it, comparativly. I thought i heard that they inted to make gear cost progressivly more and more to repair until its so expensive, you'd rather jsut get new gear. That way you can keep the old gear for emergencies or nostalgia or whatever but wont be too inclined to use it.

    The i s currently a demand for low end gear, but no supply. New players just wear NPC armor until they either craft gear themselves, find a friend to craft for them, or cana fford to buy expensive high end gear.
     
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  16. Matheryn

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    there was no problems with the market in UO when gear had a decredation over time cost - powder of fortification quest changed that when you could go and make your armour 100000\100000 durability but then with full loot it fixed the issue then again the wingers sang and they gave insurance to the game meaning you would spend your gold not to lose your items again costing crafters hard earned sales - there needs to be a balance in both crafters and wearers satisfaction
     
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  17. Lord Andernut

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    I think it is expected that most people will be going with a row lot, or what was previously the entry-level housing tier, the village lot.

    Larger lots require more upkeep and it's probably expected that city lots will be guild type locations.

    I agree that the game is very "beatable" at the moment and I have asked numerous times about "what's in-game mechanics or conquests are there to engage long-term play?"

    Gear-treadmill is one, even if that treadmill is not very different levels of power, but just incremental or is rarity-based.

    Maybe some recipes can only be made a finite number of times based on certain in-game events? Etc.

    The range of stats is quite low which makes equipment diversity difficult in terms of power without outclassing.

    If average armor level is 100, you can go 101,102,103...125 without it breaking things.

    If average armor level on a piece is 5, then even 5 levels of increases is very significant if +1 each time.
     
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