Crafting Economy Question/Issue

Not sure if there's an answer out there that I missed, but how do items leave the game? I gather that you can repair items using resources helping sink materials but once they're crafted all I can see for removing them is deconstruction which I don't think will be enough. With every other player being a weaponsmith there will at some point be an over abundance of longswords in play which will tank their value. Even the highest tier weapons will eventually be plentiful and cheap I'd imagine. What is there to combat this?

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neuroguy

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Item_sinks

Mike McQueen

So I guess the question is is overenchanting and deconstructing enough to keep the wheel turning? I can’t really imagine it will be. Guess we will have to see.

Ludullu

Mike McQueen wrote: »

So I guess the question is is overenchanting and deconstructing enough to keep the wheel turning? I can’t really imagine it will be. Guess we will have to see.

The higher in rarity you go, the more difficult it'll be to keep your gear from decaying away. And the high in player strength you go, the more OE you'll need to keep up with the top people. And don't forget that gear acquisition won't be the same as in mmos with instanced content. You'll have to fight for mobs and bosses in order to get rare gear/mats/resources, so it's not like there'll be hundreds of gear pieces just floating around.

Taleof2Cities

NiKr wrote: »

And don't forget that gear acquisition won't be the same as in mmos with instanced content. You'll have to fight for mobs and bosses in order to get rare gear/mats/resources, so it's not like there'll be hundreds of gear pieces just floating around.

Glad you brought this up, @NiKr ... it's a key takeaway.

Unlike other MMOs, legendary crafted equipment won't be plentiful at all.

(To be tested of course, but that's what the Wiki says as of today.)

Warth

Probably one of the same ways most of the other MMOs did it:

Possible Destruction / Need for Reforging when you fail high-level enchantements
Periodically introducing a better sets post launch

Kovrm

Unfortunately they are no longer going to have items beimg able to no longer be repaired. Too many people bitched about it, so they aren't doing it. (Idiots)

Personally, I thought it was a fantastic idea. Items repairable but lose max durability with each repair until they can no longer be repaired.

George_Black

It wont be ez to gather the mats needed for a craft. It wont be like wow/eso.

Warth

George_Black wrote: »

It wont be ez to gather the mats needed for a craft. It wont be like wow/eso.

Long term that doesn't matter if there is only inflow but no outflow.

Even the dripping faucet will fill up the bucket eventually

tautau

@Warth doesn't it depend on the rate of the drip versus the rate of evaporation from the bucket?

If there is a lot of evaporation (hot day, wind, large surface area) and a slow drip, the bucket never fills. If it is hard to craft and crafted items need repair due to use, that could be our situation. We don't yet know.

Warth

tautau wrote: »

@Warth doesn't it depend on the rate of the drip versus the rate of evaporation from the bucket?

If there is a lot of evaporation (hot day, wind, large surface area) and a slow drip, the bucket never fills. If it is hard to craft and crafted items need repair due to use, that could be our situation. We don't yet know.

Items don't evaporate.
They merely need processed materials to be repaired. Which is good for gatherers and processers, but the crafter will, by current information, be obsolete sooner or later when the market is filled with items

Elder

Warth wrote: »

tautau wrote: »

@Warth doesn't it depend on the rate of the drip versus the rate of evaporation from the bucket?

If there is a lot of evaporation (hot day, wind, large surface area) and a slow drip, the bucket never fills. If it is hard to craft and crafted items need repair due to use, that could be our situation. We don't yet know.

Items don't evaporate.
They merely need processed materials to be repaired. Which is good for gatherers and processers, but the crafter will, by current information, be obsolete sooner or later when the market is filled with items

Materials and recipes for crafting items are obtained from the deconstruction of other items.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Item_deconstruction

Sengarden

Warth wrote: »

Items don't evaporate.
They merely need processed materials to be repaired. Which is good for gatherers and processers, but the crafter will, by current information, be obsolete sooner or later when the market is filled with items

I suppose this is traditionally handled by expansion content drastically lowering demand for past iterations of 'high-level gear' and creating new resources / crafts to invest in, but in my opinion, a dependence on this as a solution only leads to either rushed expansions or a boredom gap between the end of current build content relevance and the beginning of the next. If Intrepid wants to make really great, full-bodied expansions without sizeable boredom gaps, they're gonna need to take their time on expansion content, as well as introduce methods of keeping each iteration of the game's content valid for a longer period of time than say a game like WoW, which falls prey to both of those problems.

Mount, gear, and ship life-spans would go a long way. I don't think it should be, "Oops, guess what, that was the straw that broke the camel's back and now you're ship is destroyed / mount is dead / weapon is broken." Once a mount, gear piece, or ship has reached a sizeable life-span, the stats should slowly begin to degrade for a long enough period of time that you'd be a fool to not replace it, and then settle at a level well below original quality. It highly encourages you to replace your things eventually, but gives you a wide degree of flexibility in how soon you decide or are able to replace it. The higher quality something is, the longer it should last, but not even the mightiest Snorse gallops forever.

George_Black

Warth wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

It wont be ez to gather the mats needed for a craft. It wont be like wow/eso.

Long term that doesn't matter if there is only inflow but no outflow.

Even the dripping faucet will fill up the bucket eventually

As the playerbase moves to higher lvs, the lower lv players will have to fill the economy vacum left by the higher lv needs.
I have no concerns. L2 had little sinks and the economy was the best I have seen.
Why? Because crafting and gathering wasnt ez.
People forget about no teleports no aution house, limited mats per region, open world pvp disruptions and even caravan attacks.
They just think "I played eso. In eso I picked up rocks and wood. In eso I reached max crafter. In eso I sold my x200 potions 1g cheaper than the other 5000000 traders selling x200 potion stacks." Wrong approach.

Sinks are only needed in shallow games. AoC wont be shallow AND will have repair costs. Why are ppl concerned about the economy when considering all the above?

Ludullu

George_Black wrote: »

L2 had little sinks and the economy was the best I have seen.

I mean, 60% chance recipes and OE burning your shit were definitely pretty big sinks imo. Ashes will have 100% crafting and allegedly OE won't just burn your shit (still need a concrete word on how exactly it'll work), so AoC's sinks might not be as strong as L2's. But we'll have to see.

I definitely agree on all the other points though.

Taleof2Cities

Sengarden wrote: »

Once a mount, gear piece, or ship has reached a sizeable life-span, the stats should slowly begin to degrade for a long enough period of time that you'd be a fool to not replace it, and then settle at a level well below original quality.

That makes sense for real life, @Sengarden, but were talking about an MMO here.

If a player has achieved a legendary mount, gear piece, or ship ... why take that away from them after an arbitrary period of time has elapsed?

Is there any MMO you've played that has this mechanic?

I do agree with you, though, about expansion content being one of the best ways to organically make older items obsolete.

Warth

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Sengarden wrote: »

Once a mount, gear piece, or ship has reached a sizeable life-span, the stats should slowly begin to degrade for a long enough period of time that you'd be a fool to not replace it, and then settle at a level well below original quality.

That makes sense for real life, @Sengarden, but were talking about an MMO here.

If a player has achieved a legendary mount, gear piece, or ship ... why take that away from them after an arbitrary period of time has elapsed?

Is there any MMO you've played that has this mechanic?

I do agree with you, though, about expansion content being one of the best ways to organically make older items obsolete.

I fully agree with you here. Backwards progression/Regression is something that is severely hated by a large part of the MMO community. For very good reason, spending days upon days trying to obtain a certain item, for it to be taken away after an arbitrary period of time just give you the feeling that you have wasted your time.

With this being said, that's pretty much the treadmill a lot of themepark mmos and seasonal games practice, when invalidating your progression with every new expansion. They merely do it to everybody, so the feeling of personal loss isn't as big.

Goalid

Kovrm wrote: »

Unfortunately they are no longer going to have items beimg able to no longer be repaired. Too many people bitched about it, so they aren't doing it. (Idiots)

Personally, I thought it was a fantastic idea. Items repairable but lose max durability with each repair until they can no longer be repaired.

It's sad that the majority of the gaming community doesn't understand this simple game design concept. If there's a tap for an item, there needs to be a drain otherwise the supply just increases until the value of those resources heads towards zero.

Item degradation doesn't even need to be as punishing as some think. If it takes 4 months to get BiS, maybe the items degrade over 4 months of playtime. So now if you're actually playing the game, you're getting another BiS by the time your old BiS has degraded. Can anyone contemplate such horror? /s

My biggest worry is that this will be a huge issue for AoC down the road, but Intrepid will do too many wipes during A2 for us to get to this point in the economy. But the economics of the issue is quite simple, just a matter of supply and demand.

Goalid

Another point on this issue: I think there should almost be no gear given by quests. What we had in Ashes Alpha 1, and what the standard is in most MMOs I've played, is that there's an economy in place for people to sell weapons and armor as the server is leveling up, but the vast majority of players just ignore that and use quest gear because the game is designed so you can progress solely with quest gear. Steven's talked about the economy being ruined by raids giving the best gear and not crafting, but that's not just true for endgame. It's true for every step of the leveling process in an MMO.

Sengarden

I guess I just feel like MMOs, particularly WoW, as that's been my primary experience over the years, have a habit of turn into hoarding simulators. If anyone else has more experience in other games, particularly Archeage where Steven seems to get most of his inspiration, maybe you can assuage my fears around this.

WoW, at least, relies on boss drops, achievements, or quest rewards to give people gear and mounts (I'd put ships in the same perceived category as mounts) so of course those players would hate the idea of losing their stuff. Who wants to farm the same boss again for 6 months to a year or more in order to get that rare mount again? You literally can't go get an achievement or do most unique/significant quest lines again. So I feel like most players' past game experiences put them at odds with this concept.

If gear, mounts, and ships are primarily obtained in Ashes by participating in the crafting economy and doing dynamic content, then having "lifespans" (lengthy ones even, with very slow degradation afterwards) gives more life to that variable content. Steven has said that bosses will not play the same way each time you encounter them. Quite a bit of combat and sailing content relies on PvP, and that's always variable. Practicing professions is a variable experience depending on your current home location and micro/macro economy, which are all subject to change as the world evolves.

When these are the primary ways of obtaining gear, mounts, ships, and gold, would life spans on these sorts of items not be more approachable? Only through use, of course, not over a basis of ongoing time. I don't even think they need to become drastically less powerful, just enough of a bother to make you consider getting a new one eventually. Maybe a newer rival guild just got their first sets of the same items you got a year ago and their newer quality is giving them a 1->5% boost over time in overall combat effectiveness. Such a system would introduce more opportunities for shifts in power dynamic and further shake up those content experiences without ever completely destroying or invalidating your stuff.

I just feel like Ashes is such a dynamic, living, breathing game concept, that structuring progression throughout it in a static "get this stuff and PvP until the next expansion comes out" over and over again just doesn't seem right. The only alternative I can see right now to prevent content droughts would be to make getting new gear, mount, and ship upgrades take a very, very long time. I'm also fine with that solution, but most MMO players aren't used to that either, and might complain about such a design just as much.

Sengarden

TLDR:
Most MMOs provide gear/mounts through one-time achievements/events or 6+ month grinds for a specific boss drop who fights the same way every time, so naturally most players react poorly to the thought of losing their things.

With a dynamic game design like Ashes that focuses on crafting, PvP, and changing boss patterns to obtain these items, continued participation will be rewarding for a very long time, and might prevent the concept of eventually re-obtaining gear feel like a punishment.

Items don't need to be destroyed, they could simply be reduced in effectiveness by a slowly building 1->5% or so after you've used it for an average IRL year's worth of use. This would encourage eventual power-dynamic shifts and give players a reason to continue participating in the evolving world.

The only alternative I can think of to avoid content droughts is making these areas of progress take so long that players may complain about that system just as much. Ashes is a dynamic game and I'd hate to see it devolve into a checklist.

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