Using coins to repair max durability?

Perhaps. But someone will always find the optimal acquisition method, then the copycats, market saturation, then Port addresses the symptom, rinse, repeat.

I know, it's a pessimistic view, but, it's the coin solution that I have an issue with. Not the (alleged) difficulty in repairing max durability.

 

Just for sake of a refresher to put things into perspective. Portalarium has from the beginning certain design goals.

1: Players should feel they can use their best stuff without fear of eventual loss.
A: Items need to be capable to longevity such that they can gain and retain history and perks related to that history. (ie: troll slayer).

However..

2: Demand for crafters and new items must be maintained.

This is a given. So...

The original thinking on how to achieve that was that items be progressively harder to repair to the point that economics force a player to retire an item. An idea which I have railed against since it was first mentioned 3 years ago.

The problem I see with Obsidian coin rarity is that in order to achieve #1, coins have to be accessible to ALL players with a balanced effort. This solution also encourages coin farming and hording. You know darn well that guilds in particular will horde these coins for the market.. now more than ever. Groups of friends will work together to gather enough coins for everyone. Their value will no longer be due to rarity but of necessity. At least to a certain degree. There will always be a few players who just won't want to deal with it because they can get by on standard, cheaper gear.

Now they COULD keep these coins relatively rare.. and probably should.. meaning eventually the mass majority of gear will break over time.. and only items well cared for (and not used much) will ever retain history.. assuming they are ever used at all. The problem with that is it defeats #1. But if coins are too abundant it defeats #2.

One of my suggestions was simply that a well maintained item doesn't break.. but if it drops below X durability you gain risk of breakage. Enough people will be negligent enough to let their gear break.. only the diligent will keep their gear for a long time.

Now I can see people only using their favorite sword if they already have at least one or two coins saved up to repair it. Otherwise it'll sit in a chest somewhere safe and sound.

 

I'm wondering why the actual coin is used in the repair, and why the player isn't just exchanging a coin for some type of repair potion with an Obsidian Alchemist? The potions being sold could then also be created possibly, but the ingredients would be as rare as the coins themselves?

Anyway, there are other issues I have with the repair system, but if theyre keeping some elements of it, it would also be nice if it made some sense. I guess we're waiting for the lore aspects they've spoken about.

 

I can't imagine any lore explaining this making any more sense than the mechanic.

 

"Rush to GM"? Really? Is it really that simple?

I'd be curious to know how people would actually be able GM their repair skills so easily. Where do they find so much stuff to repair? Everybody, please look at your best repair skill, what level is it? Is it 80? Congratulations, you've completed about 15% of the work required to reach GM, and have only 85% of the work remaining. Is it 60? In that case, roll up your sleeves; still about 97% left to go. For comparison, I'm at level 16 after one month of playing in both carpentry and tailoring repairs (adv level 66), because I only repair my own stuff (bows and leather armor)...yeah, I know, still about 99.95% of the work still to be done before that precious GM...

"Run around repairing their own stuff"? Really?

I think nobody has suggested that repairs would be possible using pure skill and holy spirit only; for example as @Net (among other folks) proposed, material costs of repairs could possibly be even higher than making a new piece from scratch. In pure economic terms it would therefore only make sense to repair max durability if the item is somehow special, but there could be other reasons (like roleplay related for instance).

 

Yes, but it's also dependent on the Producer XP pool. You need to actually have obtained the required Producer XP somehow.

I'm actually against this mechanic (that does not care what is repaired and how much) but for the sake of argument let's go with it.

OK let's use these numbers (and also accept for the sake of argument that repair kits were a viable mechanic).

Firstly this would assume that there would be enough Producer XP to actually level the repair skill (the required amount for GM is hundreds of times more than what is required to level up to 37). It's hard to estimate the actual leveling speed - the XP expenditure increases with level, provided there is enough to spend. Using the same rate as in the example would mean that reaching GM level from there (from level 37->) would take about 33 days, assuming 8 hours every single day doing nothing but this rinsing and repeating as described. At that rate it would consume about 8000 repair kits (again this is very much dependent on the amount of XP available in the Producer pool). As this is clearly absurd, one has to assume that considerable amount of time needs to be spent getting XP to the Producer pool. This certainly does support very fast-paced leveling.

Let's hope it never comes to that (hitting level caps within hours of a game's release) in the case of SotA, as it would be indicative of faulty design

I'm not claiming that it takes forever for crafters to gain GM level repair skills. I do support the argument that it is going to take a long time (usually measured in months rather than weeks) and is in any case going to be relatively rare.

After all, the repair skills are separate from other crafting skills, and are also likely to have some dependencies with the base skills (for example it wouldn't make sense to be a GM in Tailoring repairs without considerable Tailoring base skill, would it?). The amount of Producer XP available to spend is the main limiting factor in here.

(Edit - added a little note about the viability of repair kits)

 

I posted this in the Release notes thread but going to post here too.

I think the repair system is flawed in a fundamental way.
Why are we being penalized for being a crafter by having to get a random rare drop in order to repair the maximum durability?
Items should have three repair "recipes" for crafters to use.
The first one is a basic repair this will repair the item but the maximum durability will decrease, resource wise this is the cheapest recipe to produce but the amount of the maximum durability removes is the greatest.
The second one is a more advanced repair for the item and it cost roughly double the basic repair for resources, but this is not for a basic crafter to make is journeyman level difficulty recipe. But this only decreases the maximum durability of the item by half of the amount the basic repair recipe does.
The third and final recipe for repair would be at a master level this level allows you to repair the maximum durability. This recipes resource cost would be about double of the journeyman level repair. This way no random rare drop is needed in order to repair a durability of an item it is the skill games not random rare drops that dictate economy.

In a reply I stated:
Yes your max durability slowly wears down, not saying to take that out. Saying make it so only a Master level crafter can raise it back up to full but also make it very expensive to do so.

And by expensive I mean the cost to make the item in materials level of cost. This way when you make a great set of gear and want to keep it, it takes a Master level crafter plus the same amount of resources to raise the max durability back to its original level. This way you would only do it for items that you really want to keep and you would have to know someone who could do it. The new system doesn't make it sound like you need good skills to repair the max durability it just needs the obsidian crowns which means they will be used by people with low level skills without the need to go back to the master crafters that make the great gear. Adding rares to do something isn't a good thing as it just makes another hoop to jump though to do something.

I think these allow for better working to the repair system then adding a random rare drop.

 

I can see some max durability loss from an amateur repair but a journeyman should be able to do it with no loss.

 

I wouldn't worry about it, we've been testing grinding mobs in the buff (no armor or gear equipped except looted weapons).
(You may want to consider changing the gender of of your avatar to something your willing to look at fighting in their underwear)

Still grinds at almost the same rate, and it's free. Crits are a little more dangerous, but surprisingly it it's generally the same as fully crafted suit.
We've also been tracking down where to loot free weapons and armor that can be stocked up on.

Basically means I'll never need to claim my royal founder, founder or benefactor gear, it can safely stay in my bank in pristine condition until the day it becomes a rare.

I'll only need to buy or craft a crafted suit and weapon once, and store it for special occasions only.
so no real change, except I won't be wearing my good stuff day to day

I will miss my light enchanted gear, (knight helm, lord helm, lord cloak, knight cloak) but I can just as easily put the light spell back on my bar, though I'm not really a fan of the way it discolors the ore nodes, I'll get used to it.

 

Change naming:
Obsidian Coin -> Obsidian Powder of Fortification (as in UO = PoF - Powder of Fortification)
make a story around it and all will be happy, i think.

 

This was so true for UO, the other alternative was to become a bard and run around letting monsters kill each other and then mopping up the loot afterwards while the victor stood there docile under peacemaking... One cheap instrument and off you go