An idea for Compelling Gear Choice and a Somewhat Endless Pursuit [Suggestion]

Trob

Game content can be improved by creating more reasons to go back to a place for that awesome piece of gear or head to the anvil and grind to make the "best items" again and again.

I'd like to suggest Item Degradation and get peoples thoughts. This is basically the repair system with an added concept on top; "Degradation". I'll work in 10's to keep the math fairly simple.

1). Needs Repair: Normal item (A) is -10% damaged. It has a base of +10.00 strength.
Degradation: Normal item A is repaired to 99.9% (Cannot be repaired to 100%) it now has +9.99 strength
The item is repaired but not as strong as it was to start. It sees some loss in it's base stats but nothing significant since it was only damaged -10% to begin with.

2.) Needs Repair: Normal item (A) is -90%% damaged. it has a base of +9.99 strength
Degradation: Normal item A is repaired to 99% (Cannot be repaired to 100% or 99.1%) it now has +9.90 strength
The item is repaired and again not as strong as it was to start. It sees some more loss in it's base stats. It is more significant since it was damaged -90% to begin with. But still fairly strong at 99% viability.

3.) Needs Repair: Normal item (A) needs repair. It is -90% damaged. it has a base of +9.00 strength
Degradation :Normal item A is repaired to 98.xyz% (Cannot be repaired to 100% or 98.abc%) it now has +9.80 strength
The item continues it degradation. and little by little it will wither away from more use and many repairs. In its early stages a few nicks are no big deal but over time....
X.)
Y.)
99.) Normal item A is repaired to 50% (Cannot be repaired to 100% or 50.1%) it now has +5.00 strength
[Continues or stops.]

Please excuse the imperfect math but I think I painted the picture fairly well.


The point being that a player has a base need to continue to play and acquire gear.
The need being to replace their items over time no matter how strong the item. As opposed to todays common MMO, the best item is best all Season/Tier/Patch and/or forever, once you've earned it you can unsub or stop till next tier or patch because the item will always be that good.

The perfect item is only perfect for as long as it stays above a certain degradation.
Normal Items would degrade much faster. All other rare items through to legendary items degrade at a lesser rate based on the Rarity of them item.
(Normal/Rare [Higher rate of degradation], legendary [Lowest Rate of degradation]).

Unique items as a common system already create a system where you cannot back stock the best items. (To counter my own first self criticism, "why not just stock up the best items").

The real world similarity to create in-game realism is that, without some modification or refurbishing process the "Brand New Item" is never able to be Brand new again.
It always breaks down. With a piece of armor after tempering and continued abuse of repairs it's not the same item it was 1 repair ago or even 100 repairs or 1000 repairs ago.
At some point that legendary item is not as good as it used to be. And a fresh item needs to be acquired to replace it. For unique items scenarios once the user drops the unique item or destroys it they can acquire it again if that's what they need.

I feel this creates a Strong sense of realism and a need to take advantage of all different types of gear no matter how far down the road in progression you are you can always go back at some point to potentially find something useful. This also adds some interesting problems/solutions for the SIM and theorycraft community.

I'd love to get peoples thoughts on why you like this idea and even why you don't. Have you seen this in an MMO or other game before and how did it work or did you like it?

I think part of the "that would suck" feeling is understandable. However the suggestion is more so to create longevity for the game and the patch cycles and a desire to replay content instead of the usual "'l'll make an alt" or "I'll carry someone through it". Why not go back and relive the fight. Enjoy it again and get the feeling of being stoked to obtain that strong weapon and get back on top?

No TL:DR sorry, this ones not that painful.

Talents

This has already been discussed multiple times before. This won't be a system, but the entire point of the gear repair system is that it's not just a gold sink, but requires some base materials equivalent to the gear you're repairing.

Dreoh

To jump in on part of this I'm pretty sure there's already a mechanic planned where you need some of the materials used in crafting it to repair it, making crafters constantly relevant end-game.

Trob

Talents wrote: »

This has already been discussed multiple times before. This won't be a system, but the entire point of the gear repair system is that it's not just a gold sink, but requires some base materials equivalent to the gear you're repairing.

Interesting that degradation had been discussed before. Its very different from requiring base materials in repair costs. I'd love to see the discussion if you have it @Talents .

Glad to know that the requirement of base materials will be needed to upkeep gear. Although, does that mean loot drops won't have that requirement. What would be the based item for a boss drop when it wasn't crafted? Is all gear crafted?

Thanks for the reply.

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 repair gear with materials that it consists off through crafters (they don't just craft but maintain gear to keep crafters relevant)
- Gear can potentially break if it hits 0 durability and you would need someone who can actually make that specific item to reforge it.
- You can't? Aquire new gear.

The only decay that Steven talked about as far as I remember is that the more durability the gear lost the more materials you will need to repair it and reforging it (0 durability) will add another extra cost on top of it.

Something else that plays a part in this, materials can simply become unavailable globally with a dungeon or boss being not available any more/ replaced through progression of the node, which renders all gear based on it useless with time.
Mob dropped gear still consists of materials and have a repair cost equivalent to it's crafted counterpart. Steven has given us quotes-a-plenty on that, I suggest you visit the Ashes-Wiki, if you want to fact check more deeply.

daveywavey

This webpage might be of help: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Item_sinks

Trob

daveywavey wrote: »

This webpage might be of help: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Item_sinks

Thanks for sharing. I do understand how the current system works. My suggestion includes the current repair system and in addition degradation (An item never being able to be repaired to 100%).

I don't think anything is wrong with the current system. I like it. In fact my suggestion goes to elaborate on
Section 4 from the wiki:

"There is no limit to the number of times an item can be repaired." and to add a limit be it 100x or 1000x or 10000x..

Trob

So I guess the discussion I was looking for is what are the PROs and CONs of changing this dynamic.

maouw

So your idea introduces diminishing returns for repairs so at some point repairing the item will barely recover anything and you may as well reduce the item to material components.

Pros

• item sink
• economic dynamics (brand new vs used)
• Old end-game gear can still be relevant even if new gear sets are released

Cons

• It is very risky to invest heavily into one piece of gear
• Buyers will gravitate toward mass-produced items for maintenance reasons
• Prices will follow the automobile industry: mass depreciation
• Requires mass availability of items to be sustainable - this goes against the idea of rare drops being rare, unless they have greater benefits to gear maintenance. But if you do this to rare gear, only rich players can afford this gear, and the gap between rich and poor widens because the rich have lower maintenance costs. (Effectively taxing the poor)

So I guess the question is:
Do you want a world where the mass produced item is the optimum choice? Or do you want emphasis placed on rare drops?

grisu

Having played Valheim over the last month I have to say I don't want item degradation the way you are proposing. There you have just the food buff that decays and takes part of it's buff with it. I hate it, so much and that's "just" a buff I use in advance to be safer. It doesn't make me more powerful, if I'm not messing up BIG time, I don't even need it (I have been in the plains stupid piece of overtuned s***).

Despite that, I hate it so much, I hate watching it go down, I hate having to decide whether I want to refresh it or not.
I personally don't think we need more item sinks, IS base idea is solid imo and the potential of items becoming unrepairable due to lack of materials is more than enough for me.