The Max Durability Changes

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Rasmenar, May 25, 2016.

?

Do you like the max durability changes?

  1. Yes! Keep it how it is!

  2. Yes, but there need to be some changes!

  3. No, I want to be able to repair my items easily!

Results are only viewable after voting.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Rasmenar

    Rasmenar Avatar

    Messages:
    209
    Likes Received:
    377
    Trophy Points:
    18
    I've supported and defended a lot of things Portalarium has done to change the game, but the max durability stuff... I cannot get behind this in it's current incarnation. It's flawed, and I'm going to write up a wall of text with examples as to why I think so.

    DISCLAIMER: This is an opinion based thread. I am using personal anecdotes and my views on mechanics I have experienced in other games to illustrate why I have the opinion that I have. I'm not claiming to know better than anyone on anything, and I am open to people respectfully telling me why I am wrong. I do ask though that if anyone wants to provide a contrary opinion, they explain their reasoning as well.

    I understand that in order for crafted items to hold value, they need to have a mechanic that breaks them eventually. This is evident in World of Warcraft's history - when they would add new craftable item recipes as rewards from raid bosses, the items would initially be incredibly valuable to make but after a few months would drastically fall in value since you never lose your items in WoW, therefore once people got it and never needed it again, demand dropped and thus price dropped. Shroud wants items to hold value that fights against inflation, so years from now a player-crafted plate chest will be worth proportionally as much as it was when the economy first stabilized.

    EVE Online, you can craft almost everything in the game. But, the time/effort required to craft Tech 1 items is actually rather low. Unless you are doing Tech 2 or Tech 3 crafting, it doesn't take a huge amount of time to make pretty much anything of low-tech quality. This system works because you have cheap ships with cheap fits that are used in high risk situations, and expensive, decked out ships that you use when you are not at risk (or as much risk, anyhow) of getting blown up by players. What winds up happening is this: When a player is out doing PvE (fighting rats, running complexes or combat sites) they typically loot wrecks for modules. The modules that are not worth the time of shipping somewhere to sell (read: low value or common modules) are typically refined into raw materials. A player who spends any amount of time running combat sites regularly typically has a ton of light-weight, easy to move minerals that are required for crafting tech 1 items. There's a MASSIVE volume of those materials available on the market as well, due to the relative speed at which you are able to gain them from mining in the most dangerous areas of the game (which, of course, is where the majority of players flock to - everyone wants the big rewards and most people consider it worth the risk). So your low-tier stuff is cheap to make, not amazingly expensive to buy (I can pick up and fit out most Tech 1 cruisers in a fit that'll handle up to leve 3 missions for around 10 million, which takes me about 11 minutes to earn from PvE "bounty" income if I am killing slow). But, for the higher tier missions (4 and above) you need harder to make, more expensive ships/modules/etc to be able to handle them. That, to me, is a healthy balance and it's kept the economy in EVE running for decades.

    I have two reasons as to why the current mechanics in Shroud do not line up with this. First off - there is no "basic tier" of player-crafted gear. There is simply crafted gear or vendor gear, no in between. The vendor gear is of course readily available (as it's on a vendor) and cheap, so right now vendor gear is filling the role of Tech 1 items in EVE. The problem is that players are not a part of the creation of those items so it does nothing to add to the economy. Any player-crafted gear that you have acquired you have either spent the time to make it yourself, have a really generous friend who doesn't mind making you some, or spent a lot of time farming in vendor-bought gear for gold to buy player crafted items.

    Second off - Items do not get permanently destroyed by game mechanics (outside of enchanting), because they CAN be repaired with obsidian crowns (Which, I would venture a guess will be their primary use). Obsidian crowns (by description, I have no experience farming them myself so I could be wrong) are "extremely rare and valuable," so you are using an item that is hard to come by to repair your gear. If the crowns are as rare as the description makes them out to be... it's not going to be cost effective to repair anything but the best crafted/enchanted gear because the crowns are going to be worth too much gold to justify it. So, the items are either going to be destroyed by player choice (vendored, salvaged, or deleted from an inventory) or simply sit around broken until the price on obsidian crowns drops.

    I'll go back to EVE online for an example because I don't have a huge amount of experience with other games that feature player-driven economies. In eve, when you "Die" your ship is destroyed. Some of your modules might survive in the wreck, and a high-tech ship wreck is worth salvaging (high-tech salvage sells extremely well), but the item was forced out of the economy. So, when an item breaks, it should actually break and you should be left with a broken item who's only use is to be salvaged.

    And there should be a mechanic in-place for repairing max durability that doesn't involve a rare coin item looted in high-level areas. Even if you made it cost half of the materials required to craft an item to repair it, that would be 1) more immersive and lore-friendly and 2) more accessible to new players. Or, even, a system where NPC's can do it in exchange for gold! Repairs provide an excellent source of a believable gold sink. Perhaps only lower-tier items can be repaired for gold, and higher tier items REQUIRE a skilled player with a small pile of resources to repair? Give the repair a chance to fail and destroy the item, if you want items to be constantly cycled out of the economy? New players coming into a fantasy game have certain expectations as far as gameplay goes and having a system in place to repair at least your basic gear easily is one of those expectations - it's especially punishing to new players (who keep a game alive) to realize that they can't fix their super bad ass armor that a hospitaller gave them without dropping buku gold on an obsidian crown... for each piece of gear.

    As for Mastercrafting and Enchanting lowering the max durability of items - I don't personally like this, but I concede that it's a way (maybe not a good way, but a way) to make maintaining "end-game" quality gear more expensive. I get it, that's a goal, I just think it's arbitrary because the system is already complicated enough.
     
    Hermetic, amaasing, redfish and 3 others like this.
  2. Noric

    Noric Avatar

    Messages:
    1,328
    Likes Received:
    1,822
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The big issue with the whole "spend some of materials to maintain item" idea is the RNG aspect of upgrading items. If i need to spend 20x the item mats to get the upgrades i want, then I'll jump at the chance to pay 1/2 item mats to repair it.
     
  3. Vaentorian

    Vaentorian Localization Team

    Messages:
    665
    Likes Received:
    1,185
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    UK
    With regard to basic equipment being readily available from NPC merchants: do we know that this is going to continue? If NPC stocks will be limited, replenishing slowly and becoming more expensive, that provides more incentive for players to craft at low levels and either sell directly to other players or to NPC merchants (who need to replenish their own stocks)

    I'm sure it's been stated from time to time that all or most equipment in the game will be player crafted, including loot drops and presumably NPC wares. If we've never reached that state due to regular wipes, there's a pretty big unknown in the supply/demand equation.

    In general terms, I'm in favour of items breaking permanently and also in favour of very expensive options to retain treasured possessions, but I don't think there's any ideal solution to having either or both of these mechanics in a game. I do know that in a fantasy setting like SotA there will be people who become emotionally attached to their equipment (I slew my first dragon with this blade etc) and though I'm not familiar with EVE I suspect this will be a big difference between the two games. Whatever your preferences, crafting in SotA can't be reduced to a simple economic argument.
     
    margaritte, Sweetmcpwnsauce and Leelu like this.
  4. Weins201

    Weins201 Avatar

    Messages:
    7,121
    Likes Received:
    10,958
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Not even implemented til tomorrow, no experience with how it works, the change is good . . . . and of course it will need tweaking but . . . . .
     
  5. Greyfox

    Greyfox Avatar

    Messages:
    1,680
    Likes Received:
    5,942
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    USA EST
    Will pledge and add on store items also break beyond repair?
     
    Chatele, agra and Ice Queen like this.
  6. Weins201

    Weins201 Avatar

    Messages:
    7,121
    Likes Received:
    10,958
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Been said before ill say it again pledge add on item will not decay . . . . .
     
  7. Dirty Deeds

    Dirty Deeds Avatar

    Messages:
    20
    Likes Received:
    40
    Trophy Points:
    3
    Not reading ur massive post sorry, gear has to break or this will only be a crafting for a month.
     
    Sota Babe likes this.
  8. Juzzie

    Juzzie Avatar

    Messages:
    61
    Likes Received:
    124
    Trophy Points:
    8
    Does not go far enough, remove the crowns and id be happier.

    Good move portalarium.
     
    Cally and agra like this.
  9. Ice Queen

    Ice Queen Avatar

    Messages:
    2,111
    Likes Received:
    7,738
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Female
    I think they should hire Spoon as a consultant, he has much better ideas for crafting imo. :)
     
    Budner, Aldo, Cianna and 4 others like this.
  10. Brass Knuckles

    Brass Knuckles Avatar

    Messages:
    3,958
    Likes Received:
    7,707
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Spoon is a smart dude.

    Long term crafting is key, permanent gear is bad for any crafting game. Also th OP is concerned with repairing his gear, well im not sure the issue because not only can he still but he can make and sell it as well just a bit more often than once.
     
    Aldo likes this.
  11. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

    Messages:
    15,679
    Likes Received:
    24,293
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    AFAIK, they will follow the same pattern as crafted items: the maximum durability will degrade until you can no longer repair the item but it can be restored using an Obsidian Crown.
     
    Leelu likes this.
  12. Brass Knuckles

    Brass Knuckles Avatar

    Messages:
    3,958
    Likes Received:
    7,707
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Yea i was mixed about this but if you wear ur crown alot and it breaks just place it in storage untill your willing to use an obsidian on it. Most that pledge stuff is not as good as the crafted stuff but its nice to keep pledge rewards.

    If portalarium asked me id just say make pledge rewards indsructable.
     
    Chatele and Ice Queen like this.
  13. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

    Messages:
    3,957
    Likes Received:
    12,761
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Austin, TX
    I've reopened the thread due to the original topic being in a forum section that we will be archiving tomorrow.

    Please keep this topic constructive, thank you.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2016
    NRaas and Noric like this.
  14. Weins201

    Weins201 Avatar

    Messages:
    7,121
    Likes Received:
    10,958
    Trophy Points:
    153
    @Berek, @dallas , @DarkStarr

    You all need to reassure the player that their Pledge Items will never fall apart completely, Might have to repair it but max durability will never drop.

    Ok of you do not you are going to have more and more players just stack on the fact that you have not put an end to this yet.

    Better to come out up front and ensure payers understand their items are safe.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2016
    margaritte, Chatele, Budner and 8 others like this.
  15. Elnoth

    Elnoth Avatar

    Messages:
    724
    Likes Received:
    1,557
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Overall I like the changes.

    There are some things that may need to be tuned but that can come down the line after everyone has played and had a feel for the system.
     
    PK U likes this.
  16. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

    Messages:
    15,679
    Likes Received:
    24,293
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    I agree that pledge and add-on store items should not loose maximum durability. Having these items ultimately break does not help the economy.
     
    Budner, Chatele, Ice Queen and 2 others like this.
  17. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

    Messages:
    15,679
    Likes Received:
    24,293
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    There needs to be a way to maintain the high-end gear or nobody will bother buying or crafting it.
     
    Budner likes this.
  18. ottomaddux

    ottomaddux Avatar

    Messages:
    170
    Likes Received:
    164
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Location:
    Las Vegas
    so my sword of baaer won't lose max durability
     
    Leelu likes this.
  19. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    5,884
    Likes Received:
    11,033
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Pacific Northwest
    No it won't.
     
    Leelu likes this.
  20. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    5,884
    Likes Received:
    11,033
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Pacific Northwest
    Nothing between crafted gear or vendor gear, no in between ?

    If it's not crafted or vendor gear, where would YOU have it come from ? :confused:

    On that point, we are in complete agreement !
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2016
    Leelu likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.