Gear Sinks To Support Crafting?

Xenantaya

The short version of my question is will AoC have gear sinks (that is, mechanics where players lose gear) to support crafting? If not, how does AoC plan on making crafting viable?

As background, consider two other MMOs. In WoW, a character can get items from quests, has no necessity to buy items off the auction house, and the game has no gear sinks (gear is not destroyed from any action and can always be repaired to full durability). Accordingly, trying to do full-time crafting and making gold from crafting is not viable in WoW, as other characters have no reason to buy crafted items.

A stark contrast to WoW is crafting in Albion Online. Albion is a PvP-focused full loot game, where every time a player dies 30% of their gear breaks and the rest can be looted by other players. Albion also has a black market feature where crafters can sell gear for gold to a black market, and then some of those crafted items become loot from mobs out in the world, again with a portion of the gear "lost" by the black market and removed from the game. Because gear is constantly being lost and destroyed in Albion, it has a robust player economy where selling crafted gear is viable.

As these examples show, have some kind of gear sink seems essential to having a viable crafting economy. What gear sinks will AoC have? I understand that non-corrupted players who will not lose gear, but will PvP from caravans or sieges be full loot with some items destruction? Is there other PvP that will have item destruction? Will there be rapid, permanent item durability losses from use over time, such that players will need to replace gear for that reason? Or is there some other way that AoC will be able to maintain a crafting economy?

Amist

The best gear in the game is going to be crafted. As well as that, bosses won't primarily drop armor pieces like in other games, they'll drop crafting mats most of the time

Azryil

If players get enough corruption through PvP they can drop gear on death.
I don't know if it's still planned but Steven was floating the idea of armor being permanently broken in some cases.

Karthos

The fact that PvP via the corruption system can lead to gear loss will probably keep some crafters busy.

T Elf

There is going to be item decay...your gear won't last forever, it will also need repairs.

Varkun

Gear is also supposed to degrade and can also break how exactly this will work we do not yet know.

Karthos

elf wrote: »

There is going to be item decay...your gear won't last forever, it will also need repairs.

Like my teeth!!!

Damokles

You will only be able to repair equipment for a certain amount of time. Legendary equipment is excluded in this rule however^^

grisu

Unless it has been revoked our last information regarding gear life circle is this.

- Aquire gear (through crafting or whatnot)
- Use gear
- Maintain and repaird gear with materials that it consists off through crafters (they don't just craft but maintain gear to keep them relevant)
- Gear breaks if it hits 0 durability and is lost
- Aquire new gear

There is, as mentioned, other things like corruption cases in pvp, but that's all on top of the universal gear life circle for every aspect of the game.
Materials can run out globally, your gear breaks faster if you have a lot of overkill damage done to you. Crafting is the main aquisition method of getting and maintaining gear.
Lot's and lots of details have been said and unless they have been revoked, which I am not aware off, then yes AoC has very real gear decay unlike most modern mmos where you pay some coins to an npc and it's all good to go.
(I vaguely think to remember that your gear loses durability easier the longer you use it, but I'm not sure on that part anymore, could be just my fantasy going wild over the year imagining where all those systems go, but the basic life circle is very much that.)

Ferryman

@xenantaya Because AoC has player-driven economy it will cause some challenges for gear sinks for sure. In full loot games like Albion this is relatively easy to manage with portion destructions during loot drops. Even in Albion this is not enough because the crafting system is so mass productive. That is why there is also item study and salvage features. In AoC there will be salvage system as well and learn feature, which destroys item for possibility to learn recipe of that item.

I have understood that AoC tries to avoid Albion like mass production, which helps at first place to prevent so huge need of gear sinks. Items can break like others already mentioned, and I suggest to deal with repairing using other items beside ingame currency.

What it comes for loot drops via open world PvP or caravan system, I am not sure how much there will happen destruction in process, but I presume it is not at same level as in full loot games or otherwise the loot would be quite small.

The idea of Black Market Vendor in Albion is fantastic and something never seen before. That is very good item sink system and makes loot tables much more interesting still keeping every item player crafted. This feature is something what other games should copy and refine/mold to suite better with their own product.

Ferryman

xenantaya wrote: »

In WoW, a character can get items from quests, has no necessity to buy items off the auction house, and the game has no gear sinks (gear is not destroyed from any action and can always be repaired to full durability).

I would say WoW has few gear sinks and these are NPC vendors, and new patches and expansions. So WoW's progression system is the mega gearsink itself. WoW has bigger problems with ingame currency sinks and gold has suffered massive inflation within years.

xenantaya wrote: »

Accordingly, trying to do full-time crafting and making gold from crafting is not viable in WoW, as other characters have no reason to buy crafted items.

Now this was something I really hated in WoW and the situation got even worse during the game advance. Of course you could do money with some professions in early state of the game and sometimes with BoE items for example. You could do some decent gear, but in most cases you already had better gear via running dungeon and raids. So the crafting system underperforms especially what it comes for gear crafting. Most usuful gear was those rare BoA items what you could always move from character to another, but top gear was something I do not remember I managed to craft more than few times, and also in those situations the wear time was quite short.

infernomiester

To achieve the type of econamy Intrepid wants in Ashes, players need to constantly buy and sell. Rather crafting materials or crafted items, the system won't work very well if players keep all their items with minimal effort. I think gear sinking will be a big deal in ashes, may it be from players or expansions. Crafting items will be a class just like dps or healer. You'll always strive to increase your stats and unlock new abilities or content.