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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Gear Sinks To Support Crafting?
Xenantaya
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
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?
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?
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Comments
I don't know if it's still planned but Steven was floating the idea of armor being permanently broken in some cases.
Formerly T-Elf
Like my teeth!!!
- 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.)
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
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.
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.
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.