Scaling repair costs

I think it's an interesting discussion to have. I think a semi-finite model is the answer. But that's not what we're doing here.

I haven't played EVE, I would be surprised to start playing and find that competitive gear was not outrageously priced and controlled by gold farmers and the elite of the game.

 

Fortunately, the economy is one of those few things that you can change over the course of time. If the current planned model proves too hard to manage it can always be changed. Moving from faucet-sink to a closed system shouldn't be too difficult if the code is well designed.

All of which is moot if money doesn't move. People need to spend or they'll be long term issues regardless of the model used.

 

Are you talking about players new to gaming? or new to SotA? I believe most players (not all) at the very least try to learn the game mechanics, before throwing a tantrum... and the ones that do throw tantrums, learn very quickly (from others), just how to make their player experience better... I was pleased with the new player starting area, it had very informative pop ups that explained many aspects of the game. I have read the published instructions from the beginning and suggest to all, to read them at every release for news of what's changed.

By no means should anyone look at SotA as a complete game, it is in Alpha testing, I think most ppl will understand this fact. Some ppl will expect more, but they will have to be patient... Players need to use some common sense when playing, running head first into the more diffecult areas is really a disadvantage to you... Following the quest line will give you enough experience to get to level 10 very quickly and give you enough loot to start a nest egg (without buying anything)... You can pick weapons off any rack you find, leather armor isn't expensive...

Being humble as a melee locked deck guy isn't going to kill anyone... It's easy enough the way it is...

 

As someone playing EVE uninterruptedly since 2007, having been in GBC, CFC and HBC (and now enjoying retirement in Core Fountain):

*CHUCKLE*

 

That game is almost exclusively an economy simulator. If it didn't work, the game wouldn't still be running today or profitable.

And yet it is twelve years later.

That isn't to say they haven't needed to tune and balance the economy constantly, but gold sinks kept the game running without runaway inflation or crashing.

There is zero chance that happens without gold sinks.

 

Well, this is not the place to discuss EVE's economic quirks, I'll be happy to chitchat about that in Reykjavik at Fanfest.

But sure Dr. Eyjo had his share of headaches with PLEXes and mudflation. A lot of the sinks are huge hoarded caches of resources hold by players who won at EVE.

 

The cost of repairs currently cant be related to an afinity system because this is a temporary system to fill a gap that lack of crafting skills are leaving. In R15 you may begin to see crafting skills surface, along with the intended repair mechanics, and then the degredation vs costs can be balanced out later.

If they tried to balance degradation and costs right now, they would jsut find themselves having to do so again once direct repairing is implimented.

 

I tried Eve online no less than 3 times. I never felt so utterly alone in an MMO. It is probably because I kept quitting soon, but space feels empty and being alone on a ship in outer space is even more empty. I does seem popular and I read many reviews about the PVP aspect of it. I guess it was just not for me as I am not investor in the other star online game either,

 

Clarification: Weapon affinity has nothing to do with the idea of item history or bonuses. They are two completely separate ideas. Affinity is like a hidden skill or skill bonus associated with a single player who has used a specific weapon for a long time. That bonus is character specific. Where as weapon history and powers are item specific. The term I'm finding best describes this is weapon achievement. Since the powers would be some a weapon that has say.. killed 1000 elves to earn a bonus in killing elves.

That said.. the current repair kits are a temporary measure in lieu of the lack of crafting skills. There really little point in balancing costs right now until skills and other functions are in.

 

I can see how saying "Affinity" could easily mess up conversation. Have the devs officially referred to this feature and called it anythign specific yet? (Would suck to have the tesla tower, moon tower incident again. Msot folks i playw ith are still calling them tesla towers)

 

You know I don't think they've ever called it anything. But it's been talked about more than affinity has but 'affinity' just seems to have stuck in people's minds. I remember it very clearly though because Richard brought it up very early on shortly after I had been talking about it in a thread where we were discussing weapons and combat. Where as the concept of gaining power came up elsewhere I believe it was Mugly Wumple's idea initially? This all originally game up within the first 2 or 3 months of development.

The notion of affinity.. as I was discussing it (though I wasn't suggesting it as a feature at that time).. is that despite weapons falling under the same definition, difference in designs factor into difference in use.

Take two long swords for example. Unless they are of identical design.. one might be one or two inches longer than another which factors into reach. They have different styles of hilt or be balanced differently. These little things are things the wielder becomes accustomed to with use. Use the same weapon for months or years and then suddenly change to a new weapon.. that 1 or 2 inches in reach suddenly becomes important.

As it translates into a game it's like a minor skill bonus that's gained over time. Now I can't say that's where Richard got the idea but the timing struck me as interesting.

The weapon achievement (as I'm now calling it) is like Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver.. the blade that sliced 1000 necks. As a weapon gets used it might gain special (but again minor) bonuses or titles by the great deeds achieved through its use.

 

Without smithing skills fully developed some kind of stop gap is required- probably just reducing the cost of repair kits a little.

Once we have smithing skills in game there are a ton of interesting questions. There is currently no item loss, and as long as that is true, there will need to be significant loss of durability. Even if it becomes partially true and they start having certain monsters loot, the way Liches used to in UO, you still need some way to drive demand for crafters.

Assuming smiths can both repair in person and create repair deeds my suggestion would be to scale it by skill:

• NPC Repair Kits repair 10 and remove two maximum durability
• Player Made Apprentice Repair Kits repair 10 and remove one from maximum durability (Twice as good as NPC deeds)
• Player Made Journeyman Repair Kits repair 15 and remove one from maximum durability (Almost twice as good as Apprentice)
• Player Made Master Repair Kits repair 25 and remove one from maximum durability (Almost twice as good as Journeyman)
• Player Made Grandmaster Repair Kits repair 25 and remove zero from maximum durability (Way better than Master)

Now repairs done "in person" in game by a smith would be one level higher than a deed made at the equivalent skill and take less resources to do. Really in person repairs should be easy to encourage the interaction and make the process more fun for everyone. This approach supports both the play-style of being in game interacting with players and the style of the lone crafter who works through NPC player run vendors. I would like a system that supports both play styles.

It is intentional in this approach that no damage repairs are a luxury item. If they add more item loss they can scale this back and make repairs of both types more effective.

 

I'm not sure that any diminishing maximum on durability (let's call it DMD for short) should be done because there should be items(weapons/armor) that grow with use. An epic sword of bone crushing crafted by Themo Lock, after being sold at a vendor and purchased by a player, should continue to gain elements depending on the creatures that the item was used against. The epic sword of bone crushing may turn into an epic sword of kobold's bane if used against 1000 kobolds or so. With that in mind the DMD doesn't work, imo.

Lord British has explicitly expressed several times in hangouts of the idea of a weapon gaining in abilities/length/damage/specific monster bane/more to str/int/dex, etc. The more you use a weapon, the stronger it gets. The idea is that people will want to make different kinds of weapons constantly over time by further use of that weapon, rather than by the weapon being broken and unusable. Imo, we can't do this feature if there are DMDs. Who would want an Epic Two-Handed Sword of Massive Lich Bane, that gives +10 to strength and +0.8 to Sword Damage, if it is as fickle as a Crystal Sword with 0/1 durability?

For a compromise on this, I wouldn't mind seeing average crafted weapons and gear (non-enchanted or gem socketed) having a DMD. Items bought from npcs should have DMD. Items that are made with basic iron, or basic copper, or basic metals could have it as well, but once you get into items that are made with elements and monster banes, the DMD would cause problems and might as well not even have the amazing personalized features of creating weapons with use.

 

I guess that sounds like a neat feature but with no item loss crafting will be pretty sad. Most of my UO time on was Siege which was a "high item loss environment" so my perceptions might be off. If items cant be lost and never break then everyone just needs the one "best" of each type and thats it. In UO my mage probably purchased 1000 sets of leather armor. I used to keep a chest just full of new gear sets (100 of each reg, armor, pots, bandages) I would sometimes use a few sets up in a day. Shopping for gear was a common task. My mule was a smith (before skill stones) so I bought all of this from other players.

Some other model might work but I enjoy running vendors and hope they dont get people too attached to their gear.

 

Im in favor of DMD for items, i suppose a gm smith should be able to refurbish weapons. As long as there is a way for the crafter and player to both benefit then its not a bad thing. I just wanted to say that those features are important and should be considered when thinking of dmds