Koreno said:Exactly.... Ive said this before but I guess a lot of people do not read every reply. It can only be a money sink if the money is removed from circulation. Meaning is has to be given to an NPC.
I would imagine that whoever is doing the repairs needs to make or purchase repair kits, or reagents of some sort from an NPC tailor/smith. Those reagent costs can be adjusted to remove money from circulation.
I think the one major contribution that item decay could introduce is something that hasn't really been brought up--additional resource management.
In DDO, I didn't really become aware of the item degredation until I was adventuring inside a dungeon and started killing some sort of acidic goos. They ended up chewing through both of my swords and forced me to leave the dungeon to have my gear repaired. From there on, whenever I encountered them I would switch to range damage to protect my melee weapons. While annoying on some level, I think it's good to have mechanisms in place to force players to find ways to switch things up. This is especially true in regions that are supposed to be designed as 'high difficulty.'
Aside from that, it might open up another avenue for class interdepence. Say, if enchanters had a buff-line for enchanting weapons in such a way that they wouldn't decay as fast. Or if wizards or mages could cast a spell-shield that would prevent armor deterioration.
Fulton said:I hear 2 main reasons here. Money sink and give craftsmen purpose. But those 2 are at odds.
It's not a money sink if you just pass it to the craftsmen for repairs.
In the end, item degradation hurts the casual players the most. There are many who don't make much coin, don't buy/sell/trade for heavy profits often, and often go through the entire life of the game, just getting buy. Food and water purchases are already a regular expense, add item degradation, and you hurt the little guy, while the raiders and heavy players who can make tons of coin and loot at rates many can't only find those expenses annoying, but hardly a burden.
I have probably handed down more equipment for free than I ever sold in the tunnel.
They are also the ones who will endure the least amount of damage and need the least amount of repair if it is balanced correctly ;)
It all comes down to how we would calculate the damage to gear and how much we would regulate the fee for repairing it, both can be made as easy and painless as possible while still stimulating the economy and promoting player interaction but not having time isn't a valid excuse, if people want tp play an MMORPG they need to invest some time into it, even if that means doing a few jobs to earn some money, killing a few trash mobs, harvesting some resources to sell etc. it really isn't hard or time-consuming but to maintain your character and contribute to the healthy economy it can be very important, in my opinion.
I'm probably dense, but explain to me how item degration equates to a money sink when it is another player who does the fixing? I'm out XPing and earn 200pp doing so. 200pp has entered the world money supply out of thin air. I find I now need to repair some of my gear so I find a person to fix it who charges me 200pp. The money goes from my bank to his/hers. It hasn't left the game at all, just transferred from one player hands to another. My account is now back to where I started before going adventuring and the craftsperson's account is now 200pp bigger. That is not a money sink.
To get the money out of the game, we would have to pay NPCs to repair the gear, not players. Oh, but you say, the players had to spend money to train up those skills. Yes, but the cost of training was a set expense that has a definite point where, after recouping your initial outlay, all work after that point is pure profit.
One of the first rules of making money is to keep your expenses as low as possible. Not training up all the skills to repair your own gear burdens you with an uncapped (and probably ever-increasing) expense. The better the gear, the more expensive it is to repair. Training for repairs to do it yourself will invariably be less expensive in the long run because you having the skill means you can also sell your capabilities to others. You now have an additional revenue stream.
I like it too if done right. EQOA did it nicely. Already posted this in the other topic but I'll do it again here.
Do like:
- Npc fixers at remote locations, which turn into natural hubs for players to lfg or hang out because that's the safe place to go get your stuff fixed.
- Stackable loot being given to the Tank at the end of a group since they will have the biggest repair bill, bringing the community together.
- Designed donwn time, after around 2-3 hours of grinding the tank and melee attackers are going to need to take a break and make a quick run to get repairs getting rest and maybe some fun along the way.
- Holding extra armor and weapons for long grinds, when one set runs out put on your secondary set and still get some use out of it.
- Some rare monsters that can damage your stuff a bit faster like a thick rock monster damaging your melee weapons as you attack it.
Do not like:
Equipment damage tied to death penalty. Don't like it when it takes a % chunk when you die. Just let it happen over time so it doesn't make raids annoying.
Patch kits / repair kits. They're just annoying all around and unrealistic to magically fix your stuff.
mobile repair stations or bots. you shouldn't be able to carry an anvil around with you.
For crafting:
It would be cool if crafters could repair stuff too and even over repair stuff to 125% or 150%. I would hope that they have to be at real crafting station in a town or outpost or even a player/guild made outpost later on. I'd also hope if they want to over repair, they would have to specialize in that aspect of their crafting class and lose out on some other cool things. That way you wouldn't see every crafter do it just to be able to repair their own stuff. Having at least one per guild would be very handy. Of course the crafter should have to buy materials in order to do the repairs and they should be expensive enough to help get rid of some of the money but still leave room for some profit. Though I could do wihout the crafters all together and just leave it to the npcs.
I did hear more recently in a conversation that there is still no plans to have item damage in the game unless the game does need more money sinks. So don't hold your breath, but you never know. I like it more for the social aspects than any kind of money sink.
+1 Vandraad - you are correct on the PC repair money sink (unless I'm dense also). But, even with NPC blacksmiths doing repairs, the money sink is ultimately trivial and it becomes tedious unless VRI tried to monitor mudflation and increased repair costs accordingly. But the costs would ultimately need to become ridiculous where some could afford to repair while others couldn't.
Still, if repairs were similar to other MMOs I've played and assuming there is no permanent item decay - I wouldn't care either way as the system without permanent decay is meaningless.
Vandraad said:I'm probably dense, but explain to me how item degration equates to a money sink when it is another player who does the fixing? I'm out XPing and earn 200pp doing so. 200pp has entered the world money supply out of thin air. I find I now need to repair some of my gear so I find a person to fix it who charges me 200pp. The money goes from my bank to his/hers. It hasn't left the game at all, just transferred from one player hands to another. My account is now back to where I started before going adventuring and the craftsperson's account is now 200pp bigger. That is not a money sink.
To get the money out of the game, we would have to pay NPCs to repair the gear, not players. Oh, but you say, the players had to spend money to train up those skills. Yes, but the cost of training was a set expense that has a definite point where, after recouping your initial outlay, all work after that point is pure profit.
One of the first rules of making money is to keep your expenses as low as possible. Not training up all the skills to repair your own gear burdens you with an uncapped (and probably ever-increasing) expense. The better the gear, the more expensive it is to repair. Training for repairs to do it yourself will invariably be less expensive in the long run because you having the skill means you can also sell your capabilities to others. You now have an additional revenue stream.
The game can charge a tax on it so you give the crafter 1 silver, the game takes say 10% and he gets 90 copper, for example. Plus the NPC obviously is a pure money sink to help cycle that money in and out of the economy.
This is one example, there are many ways to handle this and many variations to make it suit whatever game or environment that it is being applied too but it is essentially keeping the economy healthy by removing excess money and creating a need to earn more, making it more valuable in the process and mean more to players, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be harder to earn, it just means the more earned the more that needs to be dumped out of the economy.
Without something like this in place, you will see prices skyrocket for things, putting them so far out of the normal players reach that it won't be worth trading or buying crafted or dropped items, it also breeds the desire to purchase game currency from 3rd party vendors to be able to afford the upgrades that you otherwise cou8ld have bought for a reasonable price if the economy was managed correctly.
I hope that makes more sense man and you're not dense, it is a tricky subject to get our heads around but it is worth putting the effort in and it is a vital aspect of the game, as much as people hate tax and money sinks in real life it is a necessity just as it is in the game world.
It's been very interesting reading this debate and there are stacks of great ideas. For me though, whilst it makes sense that items get damaged and may need repair it's one of those areas that I would not see. It's an annoyance.
For a casual player like myself, time is a precious commodity. If I need to invest a proportion of that time finding a city, or a player, an NPC etc it all detracts from what I want to do, go exploring or grouping with my mates/guildies.
Also, when encountering new challenges, things go wrong as you explore your strategies, tactics, aggro ranges, how tough opponents are. If half way through a raid or group challenge your group's gear is knackered either through death penalties, use degradation you are taking on a tough challenge with gear half as effective.
As much as it makes sense that items wear/decay, there are so many differing play styles, personalities, player availability, class balancing, time pressure challenges that getting it right is an impossible job to get right. I would rather see that time and effort in a different key area to something which is more of a hassle than a help.
Better options for me may include:
* For crafters, I DO like the fact that player made stuff in EQ2 is better and stronger than dropped items.
* I love the augmentation system in EQ1 to give items a personal benefit to the wearer. I would be happy to see these items lose power/need replacing occasionally.
* I like the idea of armour becoming tarnished/weathered over time in it's appearance - up to you whether you want it 'buffing up' and 'serviced' but not an obligation that potentially eats into your precious playing time.
I would rather see money investment in crafting skills to enhance and evolve a piece of armour than a time wasting hassle looking for a repair shop.
@Kilsin
Appreciate the clarification, and it is what I figured that you would try to make it a flat tax, but how could you control the repair rates where the money used/lost is meaningful at all? If repairs follow a similar curve to other MMOs, that 10% would be meaningless.
The solution I could see to combat that is to have rare expendable resources needed to patch or repair gear that crafters would need to buy, in which players would then need to pay a premium to repair higher level gear, but, again you're going to run into the issue of players not having money to repair gear if the price is at a premium.
Or, as others have said - they would just level repair bot alts - although it would still remove money from the market.
Again, I'm not aganist the system, I've just never seen it implemented where it mattered.
Ok, so, here's an idea as a counterpoint to the standard "go to the NPC after the raid and repair everything" mechanic..
Creatures who live in certain environments drop either items that can be salvaged or simply are augments for slots/armor/gear.
So, while adventuring, you can get some of these. They last many hours.
NPC's also sell them.
The implication from this is that you want one of these on every slot while you're adventuring. That's a lot. 22 slots, iirc.
So you can pay say 10g on each slot (presuming your average level 10 gnoll drops a gold) and spend 220g to get maybe 10 hours of slot buffs.
AND/OR
You get better ones from adventuring, and the effects from stronger creatures can be multiple. For example, say a foot soldier orc has a 10% chance to drop an augment that lasts 2 hours, but his boss might drop one that lasts 4 hours or has a stat + resist effect. (or 6/8 hours, or 5/10 hours, whatever)
A typical slot augment would work thusly:
Find as drop/buy from NPC.
Right click to activate, select slot.
Select effect from list.
Augment is consumed, buff is on slot/gear for however many hours.
Each NPC guild sells different types. Inscriptions, badges, trinkets, tokens, potions, parchments, whatever, by guild.
Each of them does the same thing, perhaps with varying pro's and con's, but you get the idea. Caster mobs may drop parchments and inscriptions, fighters might drop badges and tokens, rogues drop potions or trinkets, etc. The player gets these to augment their own gear/slots. In the field. Think of it like buffs per slot, but they're persistent for many hours.
So, the starting players, they start out with no augments. As they adventure, they find them, or as they gain faction, they can buy them from NPC guild faction merchants.
And those sigils or artifacts or whatever that players wear/equip? Once they fill up with colored mana, they can distill that into a tradeable item, in the field. They can sacrifice using that colored mana a few times for spectacular combat/group effects, or instead give it to a team member who is short a slot augment.
So, this is all a perception thing. You can buy the augment items from NPC's and ignore the drops, or scavenge from the drops. However, the perception is, this is a buff per slot, rather than a constant drain like item damage. Yet, it's also a resource and potential gold sink. Players will consider it raising from a baseline, rather than always declining from a baseline. You can still be effective in combat, but this perception change would be powerful, I think.
Players that sacrifice their colored mana pool often will eventually gain the ability to distill multiple augments from a single charge of colored mana, to encourage that behavior, if desired.
Seems like it's a positive spin on "maintain your combat readiness" rather than just going to an NPC and repairing all your gear, yet again. Just my opinion.
Now, optionally, this could be part of a larger mechanic whereby this is how to imbue stats and effects on all gear/slots, instead of temporarily, permanently. Lieutenants, bosses, and similar creatures could drop such powerful augments that they imbue a permanent effect on a slot.
These effects should be selectable from a list, and class specific, to permit both relevant stats and skill increases. A simple example would be, say an Enchanter can use one type of augment to improve their mez duration. If they kill 22 bosses, they get 22 permanent augments that they can put on their slots/gear. If they choose to do so, they could add 1% mez duration to each slot. This would mean they could specialize and gain a 22% mez duration increase.
However, they would give up much to have this (all the other stats and effects), but it would probably be worth it.
Another Enchanter might select INT per slot, where available, or perhaps a 1% increase in "Stab the Mind" DoT damage.
Another class entirely, say a rogue? She uses it, and gets 1% backstab damage, or poison duration, or any other skill in their Ability Arsenal. Maybe some can improve Iconic Abilities?
Further, by combining many temporary augments, it is possible to create a permanent augment, perhaps at a 10 to 1 or 50 to 1 rate. (50 temps = 1 permanent)
I'm a big proponent of player specialization, and this type of system would permit that, in Pantheon, and be internally/thematically consistent. Such a system as described above would work well with personal loot (versus shared loot), unless the drop rates were rather high, which could be problematic. Sellback price should likely be set to zero for all such items (and NOSELL), and/or the item should dissolve if not used within a day.
Still a money sink if you are paying players for repairs and they are using expendable materials or tools. At least a portion of the money they charge will go back towards buying more tools and mats to do further repairs.
Kilsin said:Vandraad said:I'm probably dense, but explain to me how item degration equates to a money sink when it is another player who does the fixing? I'm out XPing and earn 200pp doing so. 200pp has entered the world money supply out of thin air. I find I now need to repair some of my gear so I find a person to fix it who charges me 200pp. The money goes from my bank to his/hers. It hasn't left the game at all, just transferred from one player hands to another. My account is now back to where I started before going adventuring and the craftsperson's account is now 200pp bigger. That is not a money sink.
To get the money out of the game, we would have to pay NPCs to repair the gear, not players. Oh, but you say, the players had to spend money to train up those skills. Yes, but the cost of training was a set expense that has a definite point where, after recouping your initial outlay, all work after that point is pure profit.
One of the first rules of making money is to keep your expenses as low as possible. Not training up all the skills to repair your own gear burdens you with an uncapped (and probably ever-increasing) expense. The better the gear, the more expensive it is to repair. Training for repairs to do it yourself will invariably be less expensive in the long run because you having the skill means you can also sell your capabilities to others. You now have an additional revenue stream.
The game can charge a tax on it so you give the crafter 1 silver, the game takes say 10% and he gets 90 copper, for example. Plus the NPC obviously is a pure money sink to help cycle that money in and out of the economy.
This is one example, there are many ways to handle this and many variations to make it suit whatever game or environment that it is being applied too but it is essentially keeping the economy healthy by removing excess money and creating a need to earn more, making it more valuable in the process and mean more to players, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be harder to earn, it just means the more earned the more that needs to be dumped out of the economy.
Without something like this in place, you will see prices skyrocket for things, putting them so far out of the normal players reach that it won't be worth trading or buying crafted or dropped items, it also breeds the desire to purchase game currency from 3rd party vendors to be able to afford the upgrades that you otherwise cou8ld have bought for a reasonable price if the economy was managed correctly.
I hope that makes more sense man and you're not dense, it is a tricky subject to get our heads around but it is worth putting the effort in and it is a vital aspect of the game, as much as people hate tax and money sinks in real life it is a necessity just as it is in the game world.
For that to work, both the adventurer needing the repair and the crafter doing the repair need to be taxed equally and from their own pockets. In your example, I'm out 1 silver but the crafter is up 90 copper. I've clearly lost more in the transaction. No matter how you 'tax' it, the crafter will always mark-up their services to compensate for any losses due to their own tools degrading so in the end, it is the adventurer who loses more in the long run while the crafter gets ever richer and the economy will still experience unstoppable inflation.
I'm being completely serious here when I say go and look at EVE Online and how much time and effort they spend monitoring their economy, constantly adjusting things on a near daily basis to keep some control on the economy. Having a materials vendor sell an iron bar for 5pp no matter how many people show up to buy iron bars is where the economy will begin fall apart. Supply and demand. Demand goes up? Supply goes down and prices must go up. Will this allow for market manipulation by players if markets are not global? Absolutely. Is that a bad thing? Heck no it isn't.
EDIT: Hire an economist!
@Vandraad
Good post and it is the same point I make aganist an AH tax as a viable solution to implement an AH while not infringing on in person player trading. The taxes are argued to be a way to punish the seller who would use an AH for convenience versus manually selling items. But, if I were to sell a Gold Bar for 1 GP normally and the AH takes 25% of the sale, I'd simply sell the Gold Bar for 1 gold 25 silver. The tax ultimately would make no difference to the sellers and would only punish the buyers.
And you're right - a game's economy is crucial, and I definitely don't have all the answers - I'd second your point on the importance of hiring an economist.
A somewhat random thought though on the discussion of taxes - who maintains all the home cities roads, infrastructures, etc.? I'll be honest, I dislike taxes, but a money sink that all players could do would be to pay your monthly taxes or be hated by your own city. Perhaps there could be some form of item barter also if you couldn't cough up the coin. Prevent both mudflation and remove items from the market.
Elrandir said:1) Plat Sink
If this is the case, there are better solutions. The simplest of them is just to have mobs drop less loot--you get the exact same outcome. But beyond that, I think having expendable tradeskill-made items that boost combat performance is a better solution. You NEED your weapons and armor to go out adventuring, and if you can't adventure, you can't afford to repair your broken gear anyways. However, you don't necessarily need the tradeskill-made spider-venom poison that boosts your dps. By having the expendable items available to those with extra plat to burn, you get the same outcome without jeapordizing the experience of those who don't have the money to spend.
Elrandir does offer some insight here. If the player controlled cash on the server is growing to quickly, perhaps drop rates need to be altered. I do think that cash sinks or taxes are useful and applicable. But I am leary of any unintended consequences that can result. Repairing gear could result in a tax that will affect some players more so than others. If we tweak the way that the damage to the items is applied (gaining exp, using spells, ect..), it will likely just not make sense and damage immersion. Why would my armor start to fall apart just because I learned something or wore it for a while? If item damage comes from combat alone, tanks would bear the brunt of the cost. Although there may be some ways to avoid this issue. But again, unintended consequences...
Personally, I am all for equipment that is expendable, or can be destroyed or lost, but I think I am in the minority here. Reducing liquidity in the system will combat inflation from one side, but deflation of certain items can cause infaltion of others in a system where demand is relatively flat. (like the demand curve on semi-mature server)
Vandraad said:Kilsin said:Vandraad said:I'm probably dense, but explain to me how item degration equates to a money sink when it is another player who does the fixing? I'm out XPing and earn 200pp doing so. 200pp has entered the world money supply out of thin air. I find I now need to repair some of my gear so I find a person to fix it who charges me 200pp. The money goes from my bank to his/hers. It hasn't left the game at all, just transferred from one player hands to another. My account is now back to where I started before going adventuring and the craftsperson's account is now 200pp bigger. That is not a money sink.
To get the money out of the game, we would have to pay NPCs to repair the gear, not players. Oh, but you say, the players had to spend money to train up those skills. Yes, but the cost of training was a set expense that has a definite point where, after recouping your initial outlay, all work after that point is pure profit.
One of the first rules of making money is to keep your expenses as low as possible. Not training up all the skills to repair your own gear burdens you with an uncapped (and probably ever-increasing) expense. The better the gear, the more expensive it is to repair. Training for repairs to do it yourself will invariably be less expensive in the long run because you having the skill means you can also sell your capabilities to others. You now have an additional revenue stream.
The game can charge a tax on it so you give the crafter 1 silver, the game takes say 10% and he gets 90 copper, for example. Plus the NPC obviously is a pure money sink to help cycle that money in and out of the economy.
This is one example, there are many ways to handle this and many variations to make it suit whatever game or environment that it is being applied too but it is essentially keeping the economy healthy by removing excess money and creating a need to earn more, making it more valuable in the process and mean more to players, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be harder to earn, it just means the more earned the more that needs to be dumped out of the economy.
Without something like this in place, you will see prices skyrocket for things, putting them so far out of the normal players reach that it won't be worth trading or buying crafted or dropped items, it also breeds the desire to purchase game currency from 3rd party vendors to be able to afford the upgrades that you otherwise cou8ld have bought for a reasonable price if the economy was managed correctly.
I hope that makes more sense man and you're not dense, it is a tricky subject to get our heads around but it is worth putting the effort in and it is a vital aspect of the game, as much as people hate tax and money sinks in real life it is a necessity just as it is in the game world.
For that to work, both the adventurer needing the repair and the crafter doing the repair need to be taxed equally and from their own pockets. In your example, I'm out 1 silver but the crafter is up 90 copper. I've clearly lost more in the transaction. No matter how you 'tax' it, the crafter will always mark-up their services to compensate for any losses due to their own tools degrading so in the end, it is the adventurer who loses more in the long run while the crafter gets ever richer and the economy will still experience unstoppable inflation.I'm being completely serious here when I say go and look at EVE Online and how much time and effort they spend monitoring their economy, constantly adjusting things on a near daily basis to keep some control on the economy. Having a materials vendor sell an iron bar for 5pp no matter how many people show up to buy iron bars is where the economy will begin fall apart. Supply and demand. Demand goes up? Supply goes down and prices must go up. Will this allow for market manipulation by players if markets are not global? Absolutely. Is that a bad thing? Heck no it isn't.
EDIT: Hire an economist!
I gave a completely fictional and basic example to help you understand man, I said it clearly in my post that it can be tweaked to suit our game in many different ways, so picking apart my very fictional and generic example has no effect on the actual importance of the economy and money sinks like repairs, I am not here to argue economics as I am not an economist, I am just pointing out the importance for there to be something like this in place and in my experiences with a repair system across many games, it has worked well and helped control the economy.
We can set the tax to whatever we want for one party or both parties or do whatever is needed to balance the economy and help keep it healthy but still fun and challenging for the players, my point is that a system like this is often required to help keep the economy in check and it is one of the better ways of doing it if it is balanced properly.
We will get help with the economy when the time is right and for now, this isn't even on the table as being an option, we are just discussing the pros and cons of a system like this if it were to be implemented.
I'm ok with costing money to repair gear after deaths. I was raid main tank in Rift, and I never had a problem with it.
However, absolutely no way, no how, nope nope nope to any system which would cause a piece of gear to eventually degrade to be lesser functioning or unusable. That is wholly unacceptable.
It makes sense to have repair needs, and it's a viable money sink with plenty of options for scalability to where it is not only effective, but forgiving for low-level characters. Many people talk about immersion on these forums and its importance, and on the spectrum of what's immersive vs what's not, item repair falls on the side of being more immersive. If I'm taking hits with swords and clubs and magic and sometimes being flung across a room by a gargantuan monstronsity of a boss, my armor and weapons probably need some fixing.
An example of scalability for such a system is tailoring it to character level non-linearly, with something resembling an exponential curve on a graph. Much less forgiving for low-level characters, yet able to maintain meaningful impact as players hit the upper level character ranges.
Another example of scalability is some form of increase dependent upon item ratings. Items with higher ratings/rarity can cost more.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that a repair system is an aspect of a well-developed money sink system, not the only part of it. So it doesn't need to be a perfect solution, but it can certainly be a good part of a meaningful mitigation strategy to combat in-game inflation.
As for the avenue for implementing such a system, I believe a majority reliance upon NPCs is ideal, with crafters supplementing repairs with the creation of repair kits (tailors make light armor repair kits, leatherers make medium armor repair kits, armorers make heavy, etc). Repair kit effectiveness is related to a player's armor skill level if such a thing is implemented, and repair kits require components purchased from NPCs.