SoWplz said:I havr always liked the repair grar option. Think itnis simple enough. But I think the wear and rear should be continuous, not just in death. And the higher level more rare items cost much more. Buying the expensive car is one cost, maintaining it is other cost. A black Smith can repair your fine steel all day long, you bring him a sword that drops of a dragon and has magical properties to it, thata going to cost much much more.
I was just thinking the same thing, A scaling repair cost for gear. At low levels you could go through gear faster than the need to repair them, so it might not cost you very much. Through the mid game you start to feel the effects of keeping your gear at 100%. At max level the cost becomes a small burden to upkeep your stuff the more you use it. Therefore, the more you farm for cash, the more it will cost you to do so. Endgame raid gear would cost a fortune to utilize on a casual basis. You might have keep your awsome +9 Executioners axe of slaying sitting in the bank if your short on cash.
Another idea would be to make most dropped gear bind on equip, continuesly removing gear from the economy. Players would not be able to buy second hand loot for lowered prices to turn around and try selling it for twice that. Slowing inflation.
BamBam said: The problem with repair cost is that if it gets to high in price, players won't feel like they want to grp.
Agreed. Repair costs are a fine gold sink, but they do need to be balanced carefully. It also helps when you have a group/guild that contributes to fund each others' repairs (e.g. through guild funds).
One of the ideas I put up in my brainstorming thread ties into repair costs and durability. TLDR players or NPCs can repair for a cost but the max durability goes down as do the max stats. To repair the durability itself requires a craftsman that can make the item and the raw material the item was made from collected through salvaging or harvesting. Steel items require steel to repair the durability but raid gear will actually take raid harvested materials or salvaging raid drop items (though they could be the vendor trash items and not the boss drops)
@Mordecai
That particular idea was actually more about removing items from the economy and increasing Adventurer/crafter interactions and less about removing cash drops. I could see different NPC smiths having "known metals" that they work with and can repair. Different metals have different repair costs. If on the other hand cash drops from monsters are more selective then I don't think repair costs need to be too high. If anything I would say most monster dropped cash should be about offsetting consumable costs and not about making money. Making money should come from either high value vendor food loot or from the greater player economy.
Trasak said:https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/7902/brainstorming-player-driven-content-options/view/post_id/165044One of the ideas I put up in my brainstorming thread ties into repair costs and durability. TLDR players or NPCs can repair for a cost but the max durability goes down as do the max stats. To repair the durability itself requires a craftsman that can make the item and the raw material the item was made from collected through salvaging or harvesting. Steel items require steel to repair the durability but raid gear will actually take raid harvested materials or salvaging raid drop items (though they could be the vendor trash items and not the boss drops)
Bless Online has basically this system and it is honestly horrendously annoying. The blacksmith repair NPC serves absolutely no purpose because no one actually makes use of it (and everyone warns other players NOT to use it at all costs), and everyone ends up choosing smithing to craft repair hammers for themselves. (There's also NO player-to-player trading in Bless outside of using the auction house, which was a design decision I have all sorts of criticisms for haha.)
Mordecai said: I’m not familiar with Bless Online, do you have a thought that “could” make the system work better Naunet? Me personally I am all for player driven economy, that said I also would like to have a balance there. If implemented correctly with NPC’s there may be a way to achieve it. Honestly I have no suggestion. Trasak’s example seemed like a genuinely cool idea. What are yours? I mean no offense here, but saying something that was similar in a different game but didn’t work is not really pushing towards a solution to an overall problem you had experienced.
I posted my suggestions earlier, but I can repeat what I said about repairing if you'd like. I don't think gear repairs need to be super convoluted and that they work well as a gold sink with just a basic repair NPC. Just have to be careful with tuning repair costs so that they're not too onerous.
FFXIV has a dual NPC/player-crafter repair system that I like quite a bit better than Trasak's suggestion. Mostly I don't like the thought of using an NPC damaging my gear in any way by lowering max durability. It feels too punishing. I'm more of an "encourage behavior through positive reinforcement" person than "encourage behavior through punishment" person. If repairing through a player crafter was simply cheaper than repairing via NPC, I think that would be a good way to bring in some player interaction.
Mordecai said: I understand the sentiment in what your saying. But a person who is trying to make a profit, will also understand the situation themselves. They can put forth a price of repairs that’s possibly comparable with the NPC so no one is hurting much and the player is still making a profit
Yup, that's what I mean. Make it cheaper to repair with a crafter than with an NPC. Since there are not likely to be repair NPCs out in dungeon areas, it makes having someone in your party with the ability to repair things all the more appealing.
Nah it makes sense - you're articulating just fine! The whole "lose max durability" thing is just super duper icky to me. xD I'd prefer it if NPC repairs were just more expensive than crafting repairs haha. Otherwise you'll end up with a situation where pretty much nobody uses the vendor (because who wants to lose max durability, that's gross) and everyone makes sure to level up blacksmithing to make repair items for themselves.
Naunet said:FFXIV has a dual NPC/player-crafter repair system that I like quite a bit better than Trasak's suggestion. Mostly I don't like the thought of using an NPC damaging my gear in any way by lowering max durability. It feels too punishing. I'm more of an "encourage behavior through positive reinforcement" person than "encourage behavior through punishment" person. If repairing through a player crafter was simply cheaper than repairing via NPC, I think that would be a good way to bring in some player interaction.
The lowering of max durability really happens any time either players or NPC repair the active durability of an item as its used. This item repair is the money sink portion. I would tie the amount maximum durability goes down to the relative skill of the smith and the skill to make the item so that for high skill level items you will either want a NPC master smith or a near max level player smith to repair the item.
Refurbishing the item back to original maximum durability is what pulls items out of the economy as you will either need to salvage other similar items or harvest raw materials. I could see some NPCs being able to do this but it would make it more cost effective to have players do it. Either way the item may not be worth the raw materials to refurbish and so you either sell it cheap to lower level characters or salvage it for materials to refurbish a different item that uses the same raw materials.
Mordecai said: Wouldn’t that be the same outcome? If NPC repairs are more expensive, wouldn’t everyone want to be a blacksmith in order to save a dime?
One of the keys to this is make it so that Weaponsmiths can repair metal weapons, armor smiths repair metal armor, Clothing outfitters repair cloth armor, Leatherworker outfitters repair leather armor, carpenter fletchers repair bows, staves, spears and shields. You get the picture.
At some point, you're going to have to balance the cost of repairing vs how it affects the player and how often they need to do it. On the one hand, you don't necessarily want to irritate the playerbase with a mechanic that forces them to leave a dungeon, or whatever else they're doing, too often. On the other, making the costs too expensive or too cheap is fairly self-explanatory. Since most MMO's have featured a repair mechanic and it often has very little to do with fixing inflation, it might be safe to say that just isn't enough to keep this in check.
IMO, fun ways to spend money work a lot better, not so much necessity.