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Item Decay/Breakage/Repair vs Crafters!
Lethality
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Awesome stream today!
BUT!
For some reason I had thought that items in AoC would eventually break, and would need to be replaced. But today on the stream, Steven talked about that not being the case. I must have been mistaken.
It seems that gear will be forever repairable, though decay won’t be trivial as it might be considered in some other games. So the focus will on resource demand and cost to repair the gear via a crafter.
I had counted on the idea that there would be a demand for new crafted items, as older items left the economy due to decay and eventual breakage.
For me, the crafter “fantasy” is really delivered by creating an item… I don’t think simply repairing one will give that same satisfaction, at least for me.
I’m not sure if this design is finalized, but if it is, I would love if the team could expand a little further on how crafters are intended to remain relevant and in demand, especially once the player base their serving more or less has the weapons and items they seemingly won’t need to replace.
I think this was my first real moment of pause with AoC… help talk me down
BUT!
For some reason I had thought that items in AoC would eventually break, and would need to be replaced. But today on the stream, Steven talked about that not being the case. I must have been mistaken.
It seems that gear will be forever repairable, though decay won’t be trivial as it might be considered in some other games. So the focus will on resource demand and cost to repair the gear via a crafter.
I had counted on the idea that there would be a demand for new crafted items, as older items left the economy due to decay and eventual breakage.
For me, the crafter “fantasy” is really delivered by creating an item… I don’t think simply repairing one will give that same satisfaction, at least for me.
I’m not sure if this design is finalized, but if it is, I would love if the team could expand a little further on how crafters are intended to remain relevant and in demand, especially once the player base their serving more or less has the weapons and items they seemingly won’t need to replace.
I think this was my first real moment of pause with AoC… help talk me down
World Class Indoorsman
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Comments
It would be too antagonistic to have to replace items due to decay. It will be difficult to maintain the items as it stands. I would imagine people will have main items and back up items. Even items they are enchanting for future use.
I do not think there is a problem.
Yeah, I am not sure where I heard what I was thinking, unless it was very early on and has changed.
Item decay and breakage might be unthinkable in an item-hunt game (like WoW) where the primary source of power is dropped from a PvE event, at a rate of .002% - but in a game with a player-driven crafting economy, I don't think it's a problem. In fact I think it's a requirement, hence my post
Star Wars Galaxies has been evoked more than once by the team while describing the crafting inspiration, and in that game, items broke and had to be replaced. It was my fault to assume it would be the same here, though I don't think it's an unreasonable question to wonder why it isn't.
Without items leaving the economy, and players ever working toward acquiring the items they need, the demand for crafter services (from other players) will drop, as most players begin to settle on what they have.
Now, there may be efforts for crafters to "create 10 swords" for an NPC task, in order to supply the node for an upcoming siege. And this will be where crafters are expected to get their work, and hone their skills.
This is why I wanted to bring it up as a discussion topic, with possibly more clarification if anyone from the dev team has additional insight to offer (in their copious amounts of free time, I am sure!)
With the lack of item loss, why do we need crafters to make new ones? Thing is, items do have degradation, and crafters will be sought after, for these repairs. On top of that, the same components, required to craft, are needed to repair the item. So, in effect, the crafter is creating a new item, to replace the worn one, just not as many resources.
I'm surprised you're even bothered by this considering how much you defend New World and all its broken systems following the 180 fiesta.
This is the unfortunate effect of the player grooming that has happened due to too much WoW.
Yes, if you chased a piece of "best in slot" loot for 2 years and then it finally drops 2 weeks before the raid tier becomes invalid, sure it would suck to lose it. I hate to break it to you, but that's your artificial grind right there.
In games with player-driven economies, getting that gear will not be as difficult because players will have a hand in determining when it is available. Through their efforts and skill, none or lots of that Sword of Doom could be on the market.
And maybe you don't want yours to break so quickly? Well, then you use something else day to day, and only bring the big guns to the big fight.
I've yet to have a good explanation from an actual game designer why this would be anything but a good thing in a game where the crafters are supposedly 1st-class citizens and are the primary faucet into the player-driven economy.
I maintain that a crafting system should be designed for players that love crafting, not for players that hate it.
Hence, my concern.
Well, because as a pure crafter... someone coming into my shop for me to repair something doesn't really deliver on that fantasy, ya know? I mean, it's a means to an end... a way to pay the bills
I'll never create the next Glamdring or Excalibur that way. I need to create a *new* item, or the reforging has to be done in such a way that it offers that chance... in which case we haven't heard about that system yet (and I'd like to!)
This is just something core to the crafting fantasy that crafter players have been hoping for since Star Wars Galaxies, and since that game is often invoked by the developers here, it was something we were holding on to.
I expect you're right OP in the sense that the demand for newly crafted weapons, especially those that are good but don't require super hard to obtain raid-boss materials, will be high at launch and diminish over time, that's just a natural product of the launch bottleneck which makes it so that you have thousands of new players leveling at once simply by logic of "everyone is a new player", but I expect with time crafting will still find a happy balance where services have a healthy demand from a combination of repairing broken items, crafting new items with the acquisition of new raid materials, new post-launch recipes, and the constant influx of alts and new players.
I’m not too worried about crafters though, even though I’d prefer items to break, as they will still be needed for repairs, and even though there is a technical limit to the amount of X item needed to gear the server, even in games with zero decay I do not see crafters becoming irrelevant at any point. (Assuming the crafting system was actually useful in the first place)
What I DO worry about though is legendary items. Steven said there may be items that are literally one of a kind per server. I LOVE that.
However what I don’t love is the idea that only one player EVER on a server will obtain it. With items breaking, that would allow a legendary item to be recycled into the loot table/be craftable again eventually (unless that player purposefully never uses it). With infinite repairs that means once somebody has that item no one else can ever have it and that to me is no good. I love the exclusivity of one at a time per server, but think one per server ever is too far.
Crafted Items will rival Best in Slot items (Therefore Crafted Items could also be Best in Slot) so I'm not too concerned by a lack of Legendries. Legendry is a tier and the tier can be crafted. You might not get the same visual effects or identical stats to solo legendries but you will be able to craft Legendries with legendary resources.
Except he did say only one of a kind for some legendaries.
Just because it can be crafted does not mean multiple can be crafted.
Sure but the discussion I was having is not “are there enough legendaries as a whole” it is “is it actually good gameplay to have items that only one person can ever own”. I’m not as worried as the op about long term viability of crafters in this game.
However with items breaking then eventually exclusive items could become available again. Massive gameplay, or more specifically political, implications arise when that item becomes lootable/craftable again as everyone who wants it scrambles to kill the right boss or gather the right materials. That creates drama and excitement while the hunt is on, that might be felt served wide, making the game feel more alive and interesting.
If some guy can just hold onto a one of a kind item forever that sounds terrible to me. Especially if said legendary is actually legendary in stats/use.
If you have the second tier down from legendries you would not want breakable items because all of your effort would be sucked into maintenance of the lower tier and you would have less opportunities to advance in tier.
There must be a balance between acquisition, resource drains and enhancements. If I have Legendries and Legendries can be enchanted, I would aim for the maximum enchantments which could destroy my legendry item. Equally, if a Legendry Item can't be enchanted, then the tier below at full enchantment level could surpass the legendry gear.
There are too many blanks right now to state how the game will pan out. It is entirely down to individual players on whether they sit on legendries or push the limits of legendries. The fact we can craft legendries and crafted items can match the Best in slot is a miracle.
But back to the topic here, I would ask that you guys let go of some of the constraints of the games in your past and try to look at this with fresh eyes.
As a crafter, on the surface at least, it's boring to repair. There, I said it. I understand the mechanical function of it, to take resources out of the economy, and maybe apply player skill... but a crafter, to me, is a *maker*.
One thing to consider as far as supply and demand. If players are the only consumers, and players are the suppliers... well, there's always going to be waaaay more supply than demand. That only gets worse of those items never break (or are not soulbound, which serves a similar function).
To say that another way, if there are 10000 players on server, and 1000 of them are blacksmiths... that means each blacksmith only has to create 10 swords, and that's only if all of those players use swords
Now, Ashes may have a saving grace in the way nodes and node missions work, where crafters can supply nodes with items (and the higher quality, the better the node becomes). This could be a neat way to balance this lack of "demand" for crafted items in the game. But we just don't know it.
Not that we're going to change Steven's mind if it's set... but I do hope we will get a deep dive on the current thinking for the end-to-end Artisan system sooner rather than later!
You got your sword +7? How about trying +8.... ops your sword broke.
In Ragnarok online it worked like that.
Isnt hat how the enchanting system will work in this game?
(Correct me if i am wrong but i think i heard of something like that but im not 100% sure.)
I don't think we have enough information about that.
But I hope to god not. That's how BDO works.
That's not how crafters want to make better weapons. Crafters should make weapons stronger. Anyone who wants to roll an enchant should not be able to.
From what I understand, there will be an enchant system in AoC, similar to L2 or at least similar in a way that you'll be able to 'break' your items by taking higher risks. Thus, crafters should always be in demand.
Now ontopic. In my opinion there is no way for crafters to stay relevant and for a true player driven economy to exist without item destruction.
You need to have a way for items to be destroyed relative frequently so crafters can be in demand to remake them. You also need to make lower level items relevant even after months or years in the game so newer players or old players just taking up crafting can be relevant and be able to sell their wares.
Also having low level and/or low quality items be relevant for a long time not only helps the ingame economy but can allow newer players to actually participate in the game's economy and for crafters and other players to easier experiment with tuning or changing the stat distribution in those items(if something like that is going to be possible).
I implore the developers to rethink the way crafting, enchanting and item destruction works before it's too late, if it's not already...
Perhaps there could be an option in the system to upgrade or modify equipment, or a diminishing durability cap that can only be brought back via the intervention of a crafter.