Completely disagree with the OP. The arguments against it seem completely trivial at best, while being riddled with logical fallaices. I don't even know where to start so I probably shouldn't. Iconic visual items are something that, imo, fall into the core defintion of what makes this game this game.
It is always comical to see one of your own “Great Ideas” go down like a lead balloon but I think I touched a nerve even bringing item decay into the though process.
I think I did a disservice to my point by combining 4 different ideas into the same post that I at least feel are connected even if many others see the connection as illogical. In the background game system they are connected but mostly in terms of how they affect the focus of content design.
If I am being purely honest with myself inspiration for my post is driven from the desire to see a crafted item centered economy rather than a Mob drop item economy. Mob Drop driven item economies that are not “Armor of the XXXX” are usually all based on Named Items and that which was the EQ item economy and what Pantheon appears to be heading toward.
Named items are hand crafted in terms of item power balance, Risk Vs Reward placement, and graphical assignment. Items that do not have a clear point buy creation process can end up easily being over or under powered, even then if the point buy was not well made it can still be so. The risk vs reward is often subjective based on player power and the mood of the RNG.
Relatively, creating the stat blocks of items and placing them on Mob loot tables and setting the drop rate is a fairly trivial task. As someone who has done item modeling and skinning for games in the past the time it takes to create an art object is easily two orders of magnitude more time than creating the database entries.
In a Mob drop driven system those art objects are only used when attached to an item and then are only seen equipped by players if those items have an average or better item power balance. If instead Crafters are able to learn these Art Object designs then potential all dagger graphics could be made into top tier usable items. For that matter the poly object, painted mesh, bump map, light map, and particle effects could all be separate selectable option in the item creation process once the crafter meets the requirements. From a game database standpoint each combination in the matrix still may require a specific rendered reference model, my game engine knowledge is very outdated at this point.
All that being said I believe there is still room for some truly unique appearances but I would restrict those to epics and almost artifact level lore items. Even a king’s scepter is just a gold leaf, ruby encrusted one handed mace and was crafted by someone at some point and therefore could be again.
Item Quality Levels and Item decay are tools that I had considered as useful for integrating dropped items into the crafted item economy. They are not mandatory in order to make Crafting driven item economy but they are intended to solve some of the issues that comes with crafting driven item economies.
In crafter driven item economies the availability of goods can end up being much higher than Mob Drop driven economies. If you have the raw materials and know a crafter skilled enough at their craft with the required subskills you can have an item made on demand. This abundance could end up flooding the market with easily accessible gear that precisely fits your needs.
I can think of two ways to limit the availability of crafted items, the first is have option ingredients that make a mundane item magical be fairly rare mob drops. The optional ingredients cannot be too rare or value of the ingredients will surpass the value of the crafted item. Additionally the optional ingredients should not be required in order to level up a crafting class as it would bottle neck the advancement of a class behind a huge monetary wall which was one of EQ1s crafting sins.
The second is the dreaded item decay. As item decay is intended to effect the tradeable item economy I see no reason that untradeable items need to have an item decay function. Things like class epic quest rewards and major lore quest rewards could be indestructible by nature. In fact making an item indestructible could be the tradeoff for binding an item to your soul and removing it from the item economy. For that matter there might even be an interesting option where you can destroy a soul bound item to give your character a benefit which would be another item removal too. Soul bound items could also remain on your character after you die because they are in fact soul bound.
Item quality levels are a way to differentiate the skill of the crafter from the ingredients used to make an item. Likewise increases or decreases in item quality could be a way to have mini bosses in an area have a higher reward than the trash mobs while still maintaining their culturally appropriate items. Item quality could have many different secondary effects depending on item design, for example some appearance options may require certain minimum quality levels (you can blacken and pit a masterwork blade but you cannot make a poor quality blade reflective Damascus steel patterned.) The general appearance of an item could still tell you a lot about its quality level, base material and magical attributes and inspecting it would tell you the final stats and the crafter.
Most items dropped by Named creatures would be a quality tier or two higher than the items dropped by the trash mobs surrounding them. The items from the trash mobs (10+ copies if not more) could be brought to a crafter and salvaged to make the same quality as the named drop or even higher if the crafter had a high enough skill to make the item quality level above what the named mob dropped. Additionally these named drops may have properties that the trash drops do not and a crafter would need to learn them before they could be duplicated. If the named drop had magical effects above the items material properties then an enchanter (no relation to the adventuring class) would need be brought in with the appropriate knowledge and materials to duplicate the magical effects. A crafter attempting to learn the special properties of a named item would destroy the item and it would not be guaranteed that the crafter learned to duplicate the property such that multiple copies might need to be sacrificed to learn a new property.
This again all ties heavily into the itemization of the game, the design of the crafting systems, the design of the item economy and the look and feel of the game world itself. So I guess the original intent of the original post is more a request to design the game around crafted items rather than dropped items while having dropped items still retain value.
TLDR:
1) Requesting Itemization centered on Player Crafted items rather than Named Items
2) Most Art Objects could be made into top tier items by crafters who have learned the art objects which would increase the available end game looks.
3) Crafters would never make named items but through study and sacrifice would be able to duplicate the Named Items and possibly at a higher base quality.
4) Item decay would only be for non-soul bound items, and then only if other item removal tools were not sufficient to control the number of in game items available, specifically due to on demand crafting.
Thank you for your patience and interest in the topic,
Trasak
I think perhaps the key element underlying this thread is what is the role of crafted items. Should they be as good as legendary or epic items? Should they be as good as raid boss dropped items? Should they be as good as dungeon boss dropped items?
As someone that does a lot of crafting in MMOs I hate to say this. As someone that focuses more on solo and small group exploration and content than on major dungeons and raids I hate even more to say this. But for the good of the game routine crafted items should at most be as good as quest rewards and non-boss drops. Most people play games like Pantheon to gain experience and "phat lewt" killing mobs, doing dungeons, doing raids and the like. They are often motivated by the hope of better gear not just by the accomplishment of beating a dungeon or raid and then leaving with no tangible reward. We all know this.
There will be highly skilled and dedicated crafters. Some of us love crafting. They will make very good things and sell them. If these very good things are as good as legendary or epic items few of us will take the time to do the legendary or epic quests - and if we do we will not feel all that special using e.g. a weapon that is the same quality anyone with some coin can buy from a crafter. If we can craft items as good as a raid boss drops - it will reduce the interest raiders have in Pantheon greatly, and lower the excitement of getting a raid drop drastically. The only tangible reason to raid will be if the raid boss drops items with unique appearances, or gives unique pets or mounts or the like. All of which can be done but it still undercuts raiding a great deal. More relevant to most of us, the same logic applies to dungeon bosses. Is finally beating that contested dungeon as much excitement if your set of crafted gear is just as good as any item available within its storied depths? I think not.
Note my careful use of the phrase "routine crafted items". If an item dropped by a raid boss or dungeon boss can be used by a crafter to create gear of boss-level quality this will not undercut the basic motivation of raiders or dungeoneers. Getting the "Eye of Sung" to create a +4 longsword is just as motivational as ripping a +4 longsword from Sung's bloody dead hand - and it gives high level crafters an important role in the game. Ditto if Sung's body contains a single-use recipe for that sword. But if crafters can make +4 longswords using materials harvested from the landscape using recipes bought from trainers it will drastically improve Sung's life expectancy. To the great benefit of his life insurance company but to the harm of the game.
On a more detailed point. Almost consensus disagreement motivates me to agree that item wear is a valid and valuable concept.
How do we keep bored level caps interested in playing. Bored level caps that do not want alts.
Without level inflation. Without gear inflation. Without the cap going from 50 to 70 over two expansions and without the best weapon going from +4 to +10 over those expansions.
Using experience gained at level-cap to fuel an AA or other type of character improvement/customization system is a traditional answer. Some of us object to this because it prevents one character from having every class ability, or because it lets level-cap characters get so strong that challenging content becomes trivial. Giving a level 50 the powers of a level 70 without changing the nominal maximum level is not necessarily better than just raising the maximum level.
If the gear - yes even epic or legendary gear - decays - the level-cap has motivation to do something. Get new gear before the old gear slowly becomes less effective.
Unlike the MMO staple of gear inflation - improving the gear every expansion - replacing current gear with items that aren't any more powerful will not make content trivial.
The concept is much like creating new zones where existing gear is weaker and new gear is needed just for those zones. Thus a fire zone where you need new fire-based items to prosper there - items that do not make previous content easier.
@Dorotea
I think we are pretty close to being on the same page for the comparative power level of crafted items vs dungeon boss drops and raid drops. I was using mundane crafted items rather than “routine crafted items” to differentiate between standard crafted items and boss level items.
In my mind mundane/routine crafted items would have stats that were a function of the material used, the sub skills used and the style used as well as the item quality result from the crafters skill. The raw materials would come from that level range of zones through either salvaging or harvesting. The item would have some innate stat bonuses and an appropriate defense or offense value.
Boss or Mini Boss level items would require optional materials that could be added to the routine items to transform them into advanced items. These optional materials would come from salvaging boss level items, rarely harvested from dangerous locations or traded for with NPC in a small quest system. Things like procs and click effects would in turn need to be further enchanted onto the items.
Raid level items would follow the same general pattern with the raw materials coming from raid zones and the optional materials from raid bosses.
Truly difficult quest rewards should be on par with the highest quality boss mob crafted items based on the highest difficulty boss mob involved with the quest. Crafted items would never be able to beat the crafted items of equal difficulty but they would be able to get very close with a perfect crafting result.
All of this is also stacked onto the assumption that the Pantheon crafting process itself will be both time consuming and will require player interaction to succeed. A simple, single click, grind to max level through mounts of materials in one afternoon and learn named recipe system would be a poor fit. A system anything like EQ crafting or early WoW crafting should not even be put in the game as it is a waste of effort.
And I am glad I am not the only who sees the value in item decay but I also understand that its not the only option to serve the same purpose.
Porygon said:No.
Let me explain why. You're assumptions of a dagger that is BiS becoming commonplace can only happen. If the dagger is easy to get.
When WoW first came out, it was very rare to see players on your server in T2 gear. And even MORE rare to see them in T3. This created recognizable gear, that was BiS, that was not obtainable by everyone.
Nowadays. Because the game difficulty of lower raids is watered down everyone looks the same (ignoring transmog) idem identity struggles.
If pantheon creates a robust loot system with difficulty obtaining directly correlated to how good (BiS) an item is, what you're describing is not going to happen.
You're idea if item decay looks great on paper. But implemented. Would just be another annoying mechanic to pay attention to (much like durability in current wow).
Pantheon also seems to not have the loot pinata style system of wow, which should make items both more difficult to obtain and in essence mean more once you do, the last thing I want to see, is me winning a great dagger. And then in the next boss spawn. Me winning the same dagger a 2nd. 3rd. And 4th time in order to ovoid the degradation that will eventually occur. Because I assure you, this is exactly what will take place.
Exactly. Extremely low drop rates make a rare...truly RARE!
Now that I have thought a little more about it what MMOs, other than Everquest, did NOT have some form of decay or repair mechanic? I know in WoW it was a cash sink and not an item removal system but virtual all items were soul bound once used DDO was similar. I believe EQ2 did have a mechanic at launch and I know that both DAoC and SWG had a true item destruction decay mechanics.
I have not played any of the Asian MMOs as action MMOs have never been my style nor anything with pay to win components get any of my money.
How do MMOs with fully tradeable items and no decay mechanic handle item flooding?
Item decay may well not be the best answer to how we keep maximum level players engaged in the game without hyperinflation over the years, of levels or the power of items. I was merely making the point that it is *an* answer, and it is an answer that can work.
If you feel that there is no problem with the maximum level constantly rising or the power of high level items getting much stronger - this is a legitimate opinion and it logically follows that there is no need to even consider item decay.
If you feel that that an AA or other system for using experience earned after level-cap is not a problem - this is a legitimate opinion and it logically follows that there is no need to even consider item decay.
If you feel that introducing new item abilities or attributes that are needed for new content but do not make old content easier is the way to go - this is a legitimate opinion and it logically follows that there is no need to even consider item decay.
If you merely say "I don't want it" this is eminently reasonable - as with any MMO mechanic some people will like it and some will not.
But an analysis of item decay might best start with asking whether there is a problem it will solve. It might best continue with asking whether, if so, there are other solutions that work better and are equally effective.
Personally I am not sure that creeping maximum levels is a bad thing. Although rapidly increasing maximum levels almost surely is. I am a fan of some form of alternate advancement. I have seen MMOs use new mechanics only relevant to new areas with a fair degree of success to motivate players into a new gear grind. On balance if I was making the decision I would almost surely not go for item decay. Personally I wouldn't mind such a system at all but I am afraid that too many others would be driven away. As witness this thread.
But it *is* a good idea worth at least balancing against the other options before sending it to the graveyard of good ideas that may not be the *best* way to do something given other options and a certain customer ...repugnance.
Trasak said:
I know that both DAoC and SWG had a true item destruction decay mechanics.
The big problem with DAoC's decay mechanic, and it was a crushing problem, is that current item condition played directly into damage dealt. Their system was such that even 1% of condition loss translated to a huge damage loss, on the order of 25-33%. Your max crits were severely hamstrung. If your weapon was at 95% condition you observed close to a 50% loss of damage output. The losses from 95% downward scaled a bit more sensibly. This meant always carrying at least 1 spare set of very expensive weapons (the best were crafted) if not 2 (yeah, dual wielders really took it in the backside) so you could swap out before important engagements. This on top of similar issues with armor durability meant a ton of inventory micromanagement and farming until your eyes fell out to afford to do this. Only the absolute most dedicated players could afford to stay on top of their game. Everyone else was cannon fodder.
Trasak said:
How do MMOs with fully tradeable items and no decay mechanic handle item flooding?
Good question, maybe their economies are based on something more stable and controllable?
I don't suggest PRotF's higher-end gear be tradeable at all. There's nothing terribly wrong with Bind-on-Equip as a means to prevent saturation of the gear market, no decay needed. But I do think NOTRADE needs to go the way of the dodo. It's an outdated, unimaginative and illogical mechanic.
So I see several issues with an economy around player crafted gear being on par or exceeding that which drops in the world at large. If player crafted gear stands at the highest levels of gear progression than for the non crafting player you change the focus from hunting rare/named monster into a game of farming as much money as possible to buy what you want. This is a drastic change in tone from what kept me logging into EQ and also one of the issues I found with a lot of WoW’s early loot system. I liked vanilla WoW however it had a lot of generic gear and lacked named mobs. I was excited to see a silver plate the first few times but when I discovered all they dropped was the same green items I was getting around the world they became a lot less special. Only in the endgame did WoW’s gear start to have interesting flavour.
The gear we acquire in a game tells our story. The places we have been and the way we like to play. This is very important to me as a player and something few MMO games have done well since EQ. One of the reasons I am ok with a lot of the more unique pieces being bind on pickup is it shows that journey. Generally I see the gear progression in games being like this.
You start naked and cloth yourself with whatever you can find, buy from a vendor or wear the rags you find on the decaying dead.
As you level you may do a quest and get your first lesser magical item. The quest might take you to new places encouraging you to explore outside of your comfort zone. The item is special to you, your first item with stats and even though it’s basic it’s the best item you have.
While travelling around doing quests you end up in a dungeon where you can’t progress without help. You group with other players and eventually end up in a camp where part of your quest drops, some of the other group members are there because a named spawns that drops another item which is also useful to you. You come back on later days to try and get yourself that item and learn more about the dungeon from other group members.
By the time you reach the mid levels your gear is a story of the places you have been and the things you’ve achieved. People who inspect you can tell a lot about the player you are and what you know and don’t know about the game. Sure this experience changes on other play throughs, but each new character you play will do different quest that take them to places you haven’t been before.
I understand the desire for a crafters journey to also be special and have rewards, but that can often be at the detriment of the experience for the rest of the player base. If I can buy the best gear then the only limiting factor is how much gold I have. Now you incentivize a system where acquiring gold is the most important thing and worse you encourage people who want it now to potentially buy gold via RMT so they can buy the best gear.
The magic of EQ and even to some degree p99 is you can spend days working on a single item. I know where I acquired every item I have on my p99 characters and the ones I bought from traders were the least interesting to me.
i am not violently opposed to item decay, but I do not want to see loss of an item due to decay in a game like this. I do think there are some positives to item decay where if you stop by a blacksmith and repair all items for a reasonable price, and there is little concern you will degrade your items where they are detrimental during a dungeon run. Forget to do a repair, you may encounter that weapn becoming dull and no longer doing the same damage as a freshly sharpened weapon.
The positives i suppose are an additonal mechanic (repair) which opens possibilties for additional fucntionality for players. Blacksmith crafter has ability to repair all your gear (on your person) for a cheaper price or making tools that can repair items. Improves crafting market. As well, repairing adds a money sink and as well know, surplus money always seems to become and issue.
I think a bigger question here is, with a limited budget and man power, would we want them spending time on this functionality or have them focus on other areas?
I'm fine with crafted items competing with rare dungeon and raid drops if it's as hard to craft the item as it is to get the drop. Meaning articifically high failure rate, or the components are extremely rare, or there is a 1% chance to "crit" on a craft and make an incredible version of the item. I would hope that special crafted item would have its own unique look as well.
Regardless, I am firmly for recognizable item identity. I think it's very important to this style of old school game. It's the carrot that keeps people pushing to achieve content in game. I know how I personally react to something that looks amazing, I want it, it motivates me to get it, and I don't stop until I do. Sometimes that takes a long time. That "hook" is a good thing for a subscription based MMO.
Trasak said: How do MMOs with fully tradeable items and no decay mechanic handle item flooding?
In case you haven't heard about it yet, VR has talked about item 'salvaging'. We had a discussion a while back about 'Trivial Loot Code' and I will quote what I wrote about it in that thread:
"The other part of crafting that may play a part is the 'Salvaging' skill. This is the process of breaking down items to obtain crafting materials used to make other items. Similar to the 'disenchanting' found in WoW. Crafting some items may use 'Salvaging' of specific types of dropped items in order to obtain the needed compontants.
For example: let's say you are crafting a high level weapon called 'Holy Sword of Wonder'. In order to craft this, you need a special 'Magical Hilt' and a 'Blessed Edge' among the other mundane components. There may be several ways to obtain a 'Magical Hilt' and a 'Blessed Edge', such as through crafting them using various rare 'magical' compontants you harvested painstakingly. You may also need a special 'Blessed Anvil' found only in a specific Holy temple to make the 'Blessed Edge'.
But, these items also maybe be obtained by Salvaging rare weapons found in your adventuring. Any Magical item might have a small chance to grant a 'Magical Hilt' when savlaged. But only special 'Holy' or 'Blessed' weapons might have a small chance to get a 'Blessed Edge'.
But if you found 'Sword of the Divine' from the Duke of Divinity (mid level) named boss, and you choose to 'Salvage' it, it gives you a Very High chance (maybe even 100% chance based on your Salvaging skill) to obtain a 'Magical Hilt' and a 'Blessed Edge'. This saves you lots of time and rare componants you would use to make those items yourself. Thus, this could make the 'Sword of the Divine' a valuable item for high level crafters even when it's a mid level item that isn't used anymore by high level players.
This also means that it's hard to find a 'Sword of the Divine' to buy in the trading market, since it will be bought up quickly by crafters for 'Blessed Edges'. Keeping it rare, even years after release."
This example is purely my own made up example and the items are not indicative of items that will actually be in Pantheon. It was mearly a thought experiement of how the 'Salvaging' skill could be used to remove even rare items from the game and reduce item flooding.
It's also possible that a Crafted item could be Salvaged as well to recover some of the componants used in it's creation to be re-used in an even better item. So from my example above, you might be able to Salvage the 'Holy Sword of Wonder' to recover your 'Magical Hilt' and 'Blessed Edge' to be used in an even better item down the road.
Honestly, I would not be opposed to item decay in general. But I would be opposed to an item decay tenet that was detrimental to the community, punitive to certain "plate wearing" classes, and unfair overall. I would also suggest as long a decay as possible taking everything else into consideration. And I would much prefer to utilize crafters to defer negative consequences resulting from decay--refurbishing, repairs, etc.
@ Trasak
I would very much appreciate a crafter-entric game! I also like the idea of using rare dropped ingredients for crafting at the highest level. But I'm confused about something:
You mentioned that only tradable items would suffer decay, souldbound items would not decay. If (and I don't think it's a big if either) we can assume that raid drops and boss drops are soulbound items, then we have a problem. The majority of the game population would then suffer the effects of item decay. The highest leveled raiders would not. How could we solve for that?
Another thing I have a concern with is having crafted items commensurate to the pinnacle of high level (named) drops. I just think, that if the best raid drops are to be achived that we should not see exact copies of them without the explicit effort to gain them. I would imagine that's a bit off-putting for serious raiders.
Perhaps creating a "near identical" copy of said item. Slightly less in power and diminished in appearance?
@ dorotea
I really like the idea of one-off copy recipes as drops. But again, I don't think it should be an exact replica. Close but not the same.
OakKnower said:Honestly, I would not be opposed to item decay in general. But I would be opposed to an item decay tenet that was detrimental to the community, punitive to certain "plate wearing" classes, and unfair overall. I would also suggest as long a decay as possible taking everything else into consideration. And I would much prefer to utilize crafters to defer negative consequences resulting from decay--refurbishing, repairs, etc.
This is a good point to keep in mind with any discussion about item decay/durability. The simplest and most common systems typically punish tanks much more than other classes due to them taking the brunt of damage, which turns out to not really be fair if there's a time/monetary cost to fixing gear.
kreed99 said:My main contention with items in general is that there ARE singular items that are BIS. My theory is that there should be multiple items that are slightly different in stats but not so drastic that one item is sought after more than another. They should be sought after because of regional accessibility. Also, those items should drop in higher tier raid zones and not low level exp zones. I know that Early EQ1 didnt have the knowedge or experience of the past to reconize the fallacy of having BIS items dropping in non raid settings. I get it. But we have learned from that.
I think you arent quite understanding what BiS is.
It is the statistical analysis of all items in order to determine. Based upon the stats provided. Which items allow you to do your job (dps, heal, or tank) best.
There is no... multiple items. Unless 2 different items give the EXACT same stats. You will only ever have 1 Best in Slot chest piece. Now. It's very possible that based upon your make up of secondary stats like crit and hit etc, that you may end up with a variable best in slow list as you reason certain soft caps etc. But there is still going to be a generic BiS list.
If itemization is done well enough. You can have a BiS item that make take 10 hours to get.... but a near perfect 2nd bis item that takes 2 hours. This allows the casual player to settle for what's not best and just be marginally worse than someone decked out.
There is no way to eliminate BiS. It's just math.
Porygon said: There is no way to eliminate BiS. It's just math.
While this is correct... I do believe that it's possible for one item to be BiS for one character and another item to be BiS for a different character even if both are playing the same class. And since I can hear your brain saying "That's exactly opposite of BiS" let me explain what I mean.
Joppa, in one of the latest streams, re-iterated how the 'modifying stats' on Abilities can be used to subtly change the effectiveness of abilities based on the Gear you choose to wear and the stats you prioritize. He gave the example of an Enchanter who focuses on making his Mez's and charms last longer by stacking Charisma but sacrificing damage on his spells by not having as high Intelligence or Wisdom. Whereas a different Enchanter may want more damage on his Abilities even if it means his Mez's and Charms aren't quite as long lasting, so he might choose Int and Wis items rather than Cha items. While a 3rd Enchanter may choose more of a middle ground so that his damage is decent, and his Mez's are also decent and so he focuses on creating a balance across all his stats even if it means he isn't quite 'soft specialized' in anything.
So depending on the Abilities you would rather strengthen, you might have a different Best in Slot for a gear type than another player who is focusing on strengthening different Abilities. Or than the player who is working for a balance.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:Porygon said: There is no way to eliminate BiS. It's just math.
While this is correct... I do believe that it's possible for one item to be BiS for one character and another item to be BiS for a different character even if both are playing the same class. And since I can hear your brain saying "That's exactly opposite of BiS" let me explain what I mean.
Joppa, in one of the latest streams, re-iterated how the 'modifying stats' on Abilities can be used to subtly change the effectiveness of abilities based on the Gear you choose to wear and the stats you prioritize. He gave the example of an Enchanter who focuses on making his Mez's and charms last longer by stacking Charisma but sacrificing damage on his spells by not having as high Intelligence or Wisdom. Whereas a different Enchanter may want more damage on his Abilities even if it means his Mez's and Charms aren't quite as long lasting, so he might choose Int and Wis items rather than Cha items. While a 3rd Enchanter may choose more of a middle ground so that his damage is decent, and his Mez's are also decent and so he focuses on creating a balance across all his stats even if it means he isn't quite 'soft specialized' in anything.
So depending on the Abilities you would rather strengthen, you might have a different Best in Slot for a gear type than another player who is focusing on strengthening different Abilities. Or than the player who is working for a balance.
Yea. I mean you're not wrong... you can have a tank bis list based upon ac vs hp. But after a few months, the information will come out as what is actually best for each class, and a bis list will form. Which is where value will come from.
I feel like the enchanter is probably one of the only classes that will be able to shift their focus from damage (which will probably be mediocre) to control... I mean I guess healers could as well... but I dont see anyone accepting dps clerics lol
Just to quantify the bit about what rarity means . I'll use as example the rarest drops in classic EQ which were the category of SMR and FBSS .
Interesting is that raid drops (like CoF) were not really much rarer than the SMR category for the simple reason that the mob who dropped it had no PH so that the probability that a PH spawns was 0 . In non raid camps the probability that one gets the drop was (probability that the named spawns x probability that it drops the item) .
So now the probability to get an SMR was around 5 % of the spawns . As the spawn timer was 20 minutes , in average over many camps an SMR dropped about every 400 minutes e.g around 6 hours . Of course as the camp was running 24/24 , in average 4 SMR dropped per day .
Towards the release of Kunark 1 year later , there were about 1 200 SMR on the server . Basically almost every high level caster had his SMR or a planar drop robe (same was true for melees and FBSS) . So the OP is perfectly right , there is really no rarity value and even drops as rare as 5 % probability are being worn by everybody a few months down the road .
Would a 1 % probability item be rare ? Well 5 times rarer than an SMR but it would still make a few hundreds after 1 year . However here the point would be that a camp to get the item in average would now last 30 hours instead of 6 . And that's simply ridiculous because who would have the time or even find it fun to grind without interruption the same mob during 30 hours ? Right , RMTers :)
Nagasakee said:The very last thing I want in this game is "Forced Item Decay". If I get an item that I worked hard for, I don't want to lose it over time. If honestly I still wish to equip it many levels later than when I got it, that should me my choice. I seriously suggest that the Pantheron developers do not implement forced item decay in any way, shape or form.
This
Deadshade said:Just to quantify the bit about what rarity means . I'll use as example the rarest drops in classic EQ which were the category of SMR and FBSS .
Interesting is that raid drops (like CoF) were not really much rarer than the SMR category for the simple reason that the mob who dropped it had no PH so that the probability that a PH spawns was 0 . In non raid camps the probability that one gets the drop was (probability that the named spawns x probability that it drops the item) .
So now the probability to get an SMR was around 5 % of the spawns . As the spawn timer was 20 minutes , in average over many camps an SMR dropped about every 400 minutes e.g around 6 hours . Of course as the camp was running 24/24 , in average 4 SMR dropped per day .
Towards the release of Kunark 1 year later , there were about 1 200 SMR on the server . Basically almost every high level caster had his SMR or a planar drop robe (same was true for melees and FBSS) . So the OP is perfectly right , there is really no rarity value and even drops as rare as 5 % probability are being worn by everybody a few months down the road .
Would a 1 % probability item be rare ? Well 5 times rarer than an SMR but it would still make a few hundreds after 1 year . However here the point would be that a camp to get the item in average would now last 30 hours instead of 6 . And that's simply ridiculous because who would have the time or even find it fun to grind without interruption the same mob during 30 hours ? Right , RMTers :)
This makes no sense. RNG doesnt work like that. I've spent weekends at Efreeti Lord and ended up with bags full of GEBs. When the average spawn should have been much less frequent.
That aside... EQ was to new a game to look at what happened and base your ideals from it. When the TLPs launch. Noone cares about SMRs other than to bank one for the epic. Because everyone knows that planar robes were better.
Also. FBSS is not a BiS item. CoF is, so looking at how common FBSS became is silly. Ofcourse everyone would have one. Its ridiculously easy to get, and only defined as rare if you look at the % likely to drop.