Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Gear can be broken down and the resources used to repair other gear or used in other crafts.
We could do the same with mounts but that sounds a little morbid as Nerror pointed out. Turning your old mount into leather and stew meat every time you get a new one is a little sad.
We have crafters who craft consumables like potions and food as well as crafters who craft permanent items like smiths. I think mounts could be a good item that fits between those since animals naturally get old.
I'm just concerned that mounts won't leave the economy and will eventually make professions around them almost useless.
The problem I have with nearly every other system is that once I get a really 'perfect' mount, I have no reason to ask any Animal Husbandry professional to 'attempt to recreate that mount'. My perception is that maintaining relevance is good, but maintaining their agency and the 'loop' that got them interested in the profession is better.
tl;dr don't make it so that their job shifts over time from 'breeding new mounts' to 'making items to maintain mounts'.
This could probably work too, it shifts away from the "mount = gear" concept but I can't actually find anywhere where Steven said that right now. It would certainly cover all 4 of the points from the OP.
We could also keep the "food = mount/pet buff" concept to inspire some economic synergies with fishing, farming and herbalism.
In my mind, in MMOs, once you get your BiS gear, four things can happen.
1) You have BiS, and a new expansion isn't out yet. You don't need new gear, so you no longer demand anything from that particular crafting market. If the whole server starts getting BiS, that market is gone. Better hope new players are keeping those markets alive.
2) You have BiS, but a new expansion gets released. Now you are back in the market for new gear, to get BiS again.
3) You have gear deteriorate and eventually be destroyed, but repairing that item will give it back its original stats. Which keeps it BiS. Usually the repair costs are minimal compared to the cost of getting a new BiS, since there's no RNG in repairing the item. This is the system Ashes is going for. I don't think it's the best system, but hopefully the make the repair costs high and require master crafters, and the highest tier and quality of materials. If the gathering system is similar to rarity in SWG, then the repair costs will be at least be higher. So that will provide SOME market to master crafters, but you're still relying mostly on new players and expansions to keep the market healthy. Instead of just being the repair guy for your guild.
4) Your gear eventually breaks or deteriorates to where it's of less value than a new piece of gear. Now you need that BiS again, so you still have demand for that gear. In fact, you still are in the market for similar BiS pieces while you still have your BiS. The market stays healthy on its own; it doesn't require expansions or new players to keep the server crafting demand high. Resources are just as contested as they were on the grind for BiS.
The main reason I dislike the aging mount and aging item sinks is that the player has no control over when the item is sunk (player agency), they will be sunk no matter what just by the fact of time passing.
Economically it may or may not be a benefit to do a total sink on gear, people will start hording all the best items and never trade them, or only trade them with friends, money will seriously deflate.
The way I see it, the MAIN reason a total sink for mounts is needed (deletion) is just to keep the taming and breeding professions relevant. That is not the case for gear because a 0% repaired item will still require a blacksmith.
Also, as noted earlier in the thread there are other ways of keeping the tamers and breeders relevant into the end game, it just kind of pulls them off their designated roles a bit.
I’m really glad none of that will happen in this game. It sounds awful.
Any game where my achievements are temporary is one I won’t play. That removes the heart of what an MMORPG is about. This game would flop like a wet pancake if they tried something like that. Fortunately, Steven has a better idea about what people would enjoy.
It's still just choosing whose 'achievements' are 'temporary', though.
I can't really argue about the 'flop like a wet pancake' part, since I understand that many people don't like the sorts of games I like, but given everything else in the game that can be earned and then lost, I don't think you can say with certainty that Steven is 'against' the concept of an achievement being temporary. We explicitly already know that certain mounts (flying ones received from drops) will explicitly be temporary.
If anything, I'd prefer to be able to keep my cool dropped mount for style and have it just lose the ability to fly as it gets older, instead of 'ok month is up say goodbye to cool icedrake now'.
I won't make any argument about 'what an MMORPG is about', but I can say that I'll definitely accept an MMORPG where things I have, can degrade when I use them enough.
I'll check for it again, but as of my last understanding, mounts are killable and then are revived using an item or resources of some kind. I would prefer if that system wasn't tied to mount degradation, personally. Repeatedly killing the mount of someone you oppose feels somewhat more... 'out of scope' let's say, if this can cause them to lose the mount entirely, much faster than they would have.
Does killing someone's mount give you Corruption? What about if the person is purple at the time but not on the mount? A question for next stream I guess.
EDIT: For those who don't feel like trawling the wiki, this is on the Mounts page, but beware of wiki paraphrases, if you want to know for sure for yourself, check the reference links on that page. Not gonna post those links here, in case they are edited later.
Mounts can be killed by players, but can be resurrected after a certain cooldown period.[23][28]
Potions obtained from the Alchemy profession can be used to reduce the cooldown.[29][23]
Mounts that die a certain number of times within a set period might gain a debuff that requires a different material component to assist with their resurrection.[29]
Mounts can be targeted separately from the player while mounted.[23]
Yeah, that was my next question as well. Appreciate the quote, I didn’t realize that system was in. Which is cool, as this puts it more in MO2 territory - well sorta - since mounted combat is a spec that killing someone’s mount counters.
But still, helpful way to manage a fight in the wild.
I did not like the aging thing because it takes the control away from the player, the killing thing can be too much of a griefing problem.
In my proposal mounts do not die, and they are not killable, they might run off in a worst case scenario.
As covered in the OP, I proposed that mounts be treated more like items: you have to repair an item if you want to keep using it, you should have to feed your mount to keep riding it, it's only fair (to the mount and the economy).
Most people will release a mount into the wild (or grind it up for sausage) when they buy a shiny new one because they will not want to keep feeding it. This creates a sink which will help drive demand for more mounts (keeping the breeders and taming relevant in the end game).
The proposal also calls for a further sink: after the mount starves for ~2 more weeks it will just run off to find food for itself.
This adds some bonus economical factors with other professions that have to create different types of food for different types of mounts, and it even solves the uncommon common horse scenario because the food for rare mounts can be made rare, just like the repair materials for rare weapons would be rare.
After going back and forth with the comments I still feel like this is the most workable solution to solving the problems noted in the OP.
I'll note one thing here.
I absolutely won't release a mount just because I get a new one.
I'm used to games where stuff has an upkeep cost. Even when that cost seems like it would be prohibitive, it never matters to me, I'm usually relatively 'merchant' and better at making money in MMOs than most people.
And that's all that's needed. It's a core problem in games. (extreme arrogance-seeming incoming, but this time I'm just giving context)
I'm really intelligent. I'm also really good at specific types of games, and seeing patterns. Within some genres, if the game is supposed to be even playable for the average person, I will excel at it basically effortlessly. Think chess. For chess to be a thing that an average player can understand, a Chessmaster will be by definition so dominant that they can play a hundred games against average players at a time and win them all.
Introducing systems that produce gaps between people like me, and average players, isn't fun for them, and I don't know about others like me (some might just like being dominant and lording it over other people, I've met that type) but it isn't fun for me either.
My intelligence should generally be restricted to tactical stuff and any niches I choose. Therefore I'll at least argue against any systems that just punish the less gifted (in the case where they're difficult enough to actually affect me) or are ineffective against the gifted (because in the end those are the people that break game economies).
I'm most surprised at the 'mounts can be targeted separately from the player while mounted' part, because it mathematically implies a health value for mounts to be useful that I consider interesting and perhaps troublesome. I'll definitely be doing a lot of testing of this in Alpha-2, especially if Intrepid takes the 'obvious' approach with its usual pitfall (using mount gear to buff up Mount HP and Defense to levels over 60% higher than the mount's base stats).
Other than that, bring on the jousting!
@Azherae That is exactly why I propose the "feed your mount" sink, you have an option not to get rid of your mount. Some people will take it and some will not.
Aging sucks because you will no longer have that option.
Killable mounts are worse because other players have that option for you.
But if nothing changes we still have these 4 problems:
If this is a system that produces a gap between you and someone less intelligent because of the economical factors, then isn't requiring gear to be repaired the same type of system?
Yes, but technically that one is unavoidable, for the sake of blacksmithing.
If I can feed my stable of 'perfect mounts that I use for all content', then this is fine because the economy continues to work. "Nobles" and "Merchants" help to redistribute money from point A to B.
The problem with feeding is that I think the wrong person will get the money. Animal Tamers and Breeders, I would hope, will get their money from catching and breeding mounts, not 'extracting their essence for items to keep my mounts alive' or 'spending all day making mount food'.
Once I have Lucien, Nightingale, StormWing, whatever, I never 'need' the mid-level Tamer or breeder to get me a new mount again.
But if I have to think "well I shouldn't ride Nightingale constantly, that will wear her out, I should get a new similar mount to share the load" then not only do I need another Tamer/Breeder, I probably need a mid-level one, and I explicitly choose to move money to that person in an economic situation where they have a niche, as opposed to the probably dozens of people 'making mount food cause it's steady income'. I even choose to do it early.
"Hey Rae I got another one of that mount I sold you two months ago, do you want this one?"
"Oh great I was just about to ask you for one, I'll pay you extra for holding that one for me, just remember that I won't need another for a while."
etc.
I could write an essay on why the economics of this is better, but I write enough essays around here...
Just meant they would die after a certain number of repairs, you can keep on summoning them but at a certain point they just lose stats / become broken.
Just the nature of having some kind of a sink (e.g.: your mount will run off if you don't feed it OR you might as well just release it to save on food costs) vs no sink (as it currently stands) will create more work for the tamers and breeders.
Another concept kicked around earlier in the thread was that maybe the breeders can corner the mount food market (realistically I hope my cat food and my steaks are not coming from the same place). The only drawback is that it takes the breeders out of the breeding game and into something different, it may not be what the guy signed up for.
Edit: I realised that technically the name is actually "Animal Husbandry", I've been saying "breeder" to avoid calling someone an "Animal Husband" but maybe making mount/pet food would be a good niche for them?
Ok, but you're a-ok with new content being released and your achievement of BiS becoming temporary?
I'll always say, don't try to fix the problem (especially complex ones, since you just end up creating different problems), instead, 'twist' optimal player behaviour to be one that fits the game flow.
There are many dangers in the 'twists' that come with 'feeding mounts', relative to player agency. Off the top of my head, there's:
Oversaturation of the market for food
Monopolization of the resources required to make food to force the mounts of rivals to abandon them
Wars against the gatherers required to make food both for economic gain and the above
Changes to the game design to make food consistently accessible in some other way removing the livelihood of both Breeders and Mount Food Producers
Explicit choice to create alts for this purpose when one would not otherwise do so for personal independence due to the above
etc.
I don't see it as just a small drawback. Creating more work for others at the cost of the Breeder's livelihood is, to me, unwanted design.
I don't want a 'no sink' situation. I want to get to the point where my Horse is too old to sprint further than the distance between two nodes, and I need a new horse to go fast on days I need to go fast or far, but I can ride my old faithful mount on the days when I am just going over to InsertNodeHere and then chilling there for a while or heading into a dungeon and my mount can rest.
Plus, I know some people don't really RP or 'develop attachments to polygons/pixels' but to me, this is part of story, and 'It's been a good run, old friend, hasn't it' when your pet goes off to pasture is nowhere near as jarring as 'Well I can't afford to feed you now that I have so many better mounts'.
Also, I'm not sure it was clear, but the sink is required explicitly to make the many many people who have only one or two mounts, need to replace those. The issue is market saturation as a whole. When no one needs a new Daystrider because no one can lose their Daystrider, then you're hoping a new customer with no Daystrider appears.
Never count on that sort of thing in MMOs, it poses a danger to your game's longevity even in just quiet lull periods.
This is actually the exact pitfall I'm referring to.
If I do end up needing to expound at length on this, at the time, I'll do it then. No point in writing up a whole design document when Intrepid already probably has things covered. Toxic as I am, I still have the utmost faith in their ability to build things properly according to their base principles, I just sometimes wish the base principles were different.
I will be very surprised if the base principles that make it a bad idea to put most of a mount's defensive ability directly into gear, are not part of Intrepid's design, given everything else.
I think aging is probably bad, but "wear and tear" on a mount could also be a thing. So it'd be like a sword, the more you use it or if you die, it'll take an item condition hit.
I'm not clearly seeing how a gear sink causes people to hoard items, do you mean the higher quality mats? Recipes?
I agree mounts need a sink, but I don't see how your system gives animal husbandry crafters a job. I'll only care about 10 mounts, for different properties they have in different situations, and probably 5 battle pets. I'll just release all the other mounts I own and be happy with the 15 I have. Won't have to buy another mount until an update.
Definitely a resource sink but not a mount sink. It does not really do anything about the oversaturation of mounts and / or lack of relevance of tamers and breeders in the end game.
Ah, I’m with you now. Right, it won’t reduce the overall mount count.
Is this really going to be an issue? Maybe a searchable stable, a limit on ‘active’ mounts that be summoned from your pack, we know mount skins are a different thing than the base mount. Eh… not sure aging toward perma-death is the right way to go.
Sorry, I thought your post was to actually remove the item from the game. We already have repair costs as a thing.
It would just be another balancing act from a dev standpoint like most everything else in the economy, maybe you can't afford or are unable to find the rare resources to feed 15 pets and mounts.
You are right that some people will be perfectly happy with just a common horse, but most people are going to want to try and buy new mounts and some of them are going to buy them more than once with a sink in place, without a sink that will never happen.
@CROW3 The issue with saturation is not that players have a hard time sifting through 200 different mounts, though that could get annoying. It's more that mounts are going to be so devalued after a little while to make the tamer and breeder professions kind of lame.
A way to handle the devaluation is to implement some kind of sink. But as noted earlier, I think the aging thing takes control away from the player, the death by PVP type thing give the control to another player. But a sink in the form of requiring food could work OK.
I haven't seen much else proposed realistically besides those three things, except of course there is always this:
Actually, this is the part I don't quite understand.
How do I lose my agency if the mount ages based on how much I ride it?
The only agency I see this affecting is the one form of agency that the system needs me to not have. The ability to just go 'no, I am holding onto this specific mount forever'.
I can choose to just ride the mount less. This is technically one of the few things I have the most control over.
However, the purpose of the mount is to ride it. The aging solution takes away my agency to use the mount for it's intended purpose (riding it).
The feeding solution does not take away my agency to use the mount for it's intended purpose, I can ride it as much as I want as long as I pay the upkeep to do so.
This is just like gear, I can use it as much as I like, as long as I pay the upkeep to keep it repaired. Rare gear will require rare materials to upkeep, rare mounts need some rare food.
This will give some players agency to keep OldFaithful forever (by continuing to buy hay for her), and others to turn OldFaithful into glue so they can afford uber oats for their new shiny UberHorse. A lot more options here.
I am 100% convinced that there will always be users that want the new shiny UberHorse and would even venture to say that it is the majority. Of course there are people in the OldFaithful camp but it has never been my experience that they make up a large portion of the user base.