Increasing coto repair will ruin player economy

Like I said, interesting to see how other people play And I move around quite a bit as well, unless I'm in a confined space. And true about the bow degradation, but it was the same with my last set of bows as well. *shrugs*. I guess my point is that there has to be a change, either to the number of coto's used to repair, like the are doing, or remove it entirely. I believe that they are not likely to remove it entirely, so, where does that leave us? I guess we shall see...

 

One thing i must point out, there are a few bugs and mechanics that affect item durability loss. Dig in and the other shield one that toggles (i forget the name) has been rapidly destroying all your gear even if nothing hits you. Bodyslam damages gear faster (intended), slimes and fire elementals damage gear faster (intended). Combine this with people that have trained maintain weapon/armour as opposed to those who have not and you get a large difference in gear decay personal experience. Please don't yell at each other without taking this into account.

 

Yes, i am not arguing against the change in needed crafted weapons from crafters. I make bows and other items myself and i understand the need for a constant need of them. However i don't think using a purchased currency is the way to do it. Personally i like games where skill matters over monetary input, and for areas like crafting/combat coto's have no place. I not keen on them full stop, i think there are much better methods to try and gain revenue, but if we have them they should be for parts of the game that don't involve the economy/skill/combat. This is what attracts players to games i feel, how they with their skill can make a difference, they are put off by items that influence these areas of a game. Personally i love the game but i have been here a long time, but would i being a new possible player be attracted to this game with this method of revenue, nope, i wouldn't give the game a second look.

 

We can both agree on this I also think weapon durability probably still needs to be tweaked, although they have adjusted it, it still feels a bit off.

 

I haven't used COTO to repair my gears since final wipe either. I always end up getting a new one before durability went down to the point it's not worth paying 100g to repair. Normally due to the gear got disintegrated from enchantment/masterwork.

I've been keeping track on how much gold I made using these gears at the current state of my character progression (level 68 with most skills at 60). If I didnt spend any of my money earned from loot drops, I would have around 300k gp in my inventory. It is very possible to play the game comfortably without relying on one master gear and having to keep repairing it with COTO.

Although, I'm relying on COTOs on paying taxes on my home and also for obsidian potions for weight and reg consumption chance. Having more COTO required for repairing if impact the price of COTO and hence affect how much I can earn. Having higher price COTO is not something I wish for, but I don't think the change will ruin the economy.

If anything, wouldn't it encourage people to consider buying low-mid tier gears in more quantity and help with the sales of those items?

 

Probably ruin is an overstatement. But a title need to grab attention. I just feel low ends gears people probably can craft themselves. I probably wont bother, but am sure there are players who dont mind the hassle.

 

If you keep destroying people's gear, they will quickly discover that the most cost effective solution is to make their own replacements.
As I suggested here, if the devs want to encourage people to buy gear rather than make it themselves, they might consider applying a small bonus for every item the player uses that has a "made by" tooltip showing it was made by someone else. Further, if player X has two items made by player Y, then only the first item counts, encouraging people to shop around. (And also helping to thwart the use of alts.)

 

If it was my choice, COTOs could not be used and everything eventually reaches a breaking point. If players get perfect gear, they will never buy more.

 

This is a good point from @Vagabond Sam :
I agree. Why is premium currency expense the best way to remove items from use though? Just break them. Don;t give item advantages to those more willing to buy COTO. Even if I grind gold to trade COTO, the ones who just buy it spend more time increasing player power because gold grinds are vastly removed from EXP grinds so those who pay to free up significantly more time will get a greater advantage twofold.

 

This has come up several times starting with Kickstarter and I've railed against the idea of ever increasing repair costs every time its reared it's ugly humongous head.

I said earlier I didn't want to rehash 3.5 year old arguments but.. given the discussion seems fixated on the COTO aspect of this latest incarnation of a bad idea.. (and you know when *I* flat out call it a bad idea I REALLY don't like it in a big way). I'm going to try keep this simple and easy to read.

1: This doesn't actually remove items from the game.

Not everyone wants to keep their old gear. Many, will sell it. Or try to.

Q: Who's going to want to BUY items that are already too expensive to repair?
Q: How are players to know when they buy something how many times it's been repaired?

2: What happens when these items begin entering the loot tables?

Will players be able to sell this stuff off to NPCs?

Q: What happens if they can't sell it to NPCs or other players? Where does the item go? The bank?

Q: What happens if they CAN sell it to NPCs?

Imagine a player finding a piece of high level crafted gear. Odds are good that whomever discarded it used up its durability.. so it needs repairing.. oh but wait.. it costs 50 COTOs to repair.. so it's really a useless piece of junk.. they can either leave it behind.. try to sell it or salvage.

Ok 3.5 years ago we didn't have salvage.. so admittedly that's a new factor that actually can remove the item from the world. But I still think the argument is relevant as all loot ultimately is supposed to be player made and these weapons will have to enter the loot tables somehow.. and imagine how disappointing it would be to find what basically amounts to +15 scrap metal off a boss fight.

Q: So does the loot table repair the item? Well that's no good cause you just found a really nice throw-away item where you can use up the durability rather than buying a new item.. until you find your next high level throw away item.
Q: Does it reset the number of repairs? Even worse cause then it lasts that much longer and again won't need to buy a new one. You'll just be hunting drops for all your new gear. When it's used up.. you sell it to an NPC and it gets recycled through the loot table again.

Why wouldn't players salvage? Because odds are they can get more through selling the old item than they can for the scrap and non-crafters won't want to deal with salvage.. they just want to get rid of the stuff for maximum profit.

So while salvage may help.. the world will still have a problem with high level crafted gear floating around the markets and the loot tables that are too expensive for most to be repaired.

This isn't a good deal for crafters.. Those who get enough high level drops (if they're still usable) won't need to purchase new gear.. and as time goes on.. that will be more and more people.

Meanwhile, crafters will have to pass the inflated repair costs dictated to them by an unrealistic, artificial system on to the customers.
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My solution: Repairs and Repair Cost

Based on repair skill.. when repairing an item the item should have a percent change of a small max durability loss. So for example, a GM in repair might have a 1-10% chance that Max Durability will drop 1 or 2 points.

This would have the following effects..

1: Players will ultimately need to replace gear and be encouraged to retire items before their durability gets too low.
2: The repair skill will have significant value.

Furthermore.. Once an item has been repaired X number of times.. there should be a small chance of max durability loss if the current durability drops below 10. Further encouraging repair or risk max durability dropping to 0.

Note.. the item will never go *poof* and will always be salvageable.

This allows items to effectively break without being lost.. and it encourages items to be retired before that happens. It ensures that everyone will need new gear.

What it also does is..

ALLOW THE CRAFTER TO SET THE PRICE!

The cost of repair should never.. be dictated by the game.. least of all some ever increasing artificially set cost. This has been an idea since kickstarter that the cost of repairs would be forced to go up indefinitely to force players to retire items. It was a horrible idea then.. it's still a horrible idea now.. and I've not heard the devs seriously consider any of the many alternatives that have been suggested over the last 3 1/2 years.

This simple suggestion keeps the cost in the hands of the players and if implemented well more than achieves the goals of the Devs.. unless there is some goal not yet made known to the public..

 

I like most of what you say @Bowen Bloodgood and I would like to see items possibly break if neglected to repair, but plenty of warning about this before that happens, and also the implications happening because of the changes that are occurring to be added to the game are needing some serious tweaking

 

Most non-crafters don't care about what's most cost effective.. but what's more convenient. If everyone preferred what's most cost effective then everyone would be a crafter.

 

as I said in the other thread, I was more than willing to pay 300k gold for a set of good armor under the current system, under the new one, its more like 30k.

 

Very good question and something I was wondering as well.

 

Regardless of what system it is gonna be, I won't spend more than 15k on a set of armor for 1) there is currently no incentive to invest in that and 2) I use COTO for something else. Hence this change may not affect other people who play similarly to my style.

According to the release notes, this feature and the xp bonus on multi-pvp will be experiment. If they turn out to be not working too well, they will be scrapped. At this point, we're better off putting some energy into testing the other parts of this release, especially the new resistance. If anyone actually log in and test the tier 1-3 spells on multiple trees, you will realize we have bigger fish to fry here.

 

If it should be for the economy of crafters, I would prefer a different solution:

1. Let the repairsystem stay as it was until release 35
2. Change the consequences of dying instead. If one dies, for a small percentage he will loose a piece of armor or a weapon. (Let's say, the beasts looted it from him). Now it is gone forever.
3. Let that happen both in PVP and Non-PVP fights
4. That will keep the demand up for shure

I think this is a better solution because you can estimate the risk of dying.

 

I think you underestimate the significance of this. This is a pretty freakin' huge fish.

 

OK how about this? Forget about the fish if we're gonna have big issues with the fishing pole.

 

Not quite seeing the connection there. But I see no reason why you can't go test and provide your feedback on spells and XP and whatever else.. and still provide feedback on this.

This isn't just a real money issue.. this has long term implications for ALL players and the economy whether COTOs are involves or not.. COTOs are just making it that much worse.. which is surprising to me cause the idea of ever increasing repair costs was already pretty bad.

 

Sure, people can do both. However, I notice most of energy is being put on this issue more than it should. There are people who don't waste money on super expensive gears nor spending COTO to repair their gears. I myself on use COTO to repair my knight Marshall winged helm once due to the max durability once, but I that's it.

Have you notice that healing touch now has casting time? Some of the spells that you can cast while moving now force you to stay and cast. Some shield now have much longer. These are things that will affect your gear durability since you are more likely to get hit more.

These are things that people should spot early on if they just log in once and try to go out and hunt. Yet I do not really see anyone talking about it. These issues will affect everyone and we should look into them more. This is what I'm getting at.