Gear decay and economy stimulation

I know there is a durability loss and repair system that will constitute a resource sync.
But I think for the long term that might not be enough.
Having Items earned exist forever I find weird.
I was thinking what if the more you repair an item the more the maximum value of it's stats drop. Not something you would care for short term, but say in 1 year of constant use , an item would loose 10% of it's stats max value.

That way even the best crafted roll , would not be best for all eternity. And economy will keep churning to replace what was once best and now is aging.

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Mag7spy

NiKr wrote: »

Sengarden wrote: »

Almost nothing is instanced in Ashes, so whenever new resources come out for better gear recipes, the open world has to get bigger to accommodate those resources, and the way those new resources are concentrated in newer, smaller landmasses will create a situation where players will be constantly vying over ownership of the new landmasses and leaving outdated landmasses behind, because they no longer contain any of the best resources. Unless every time a new resource is added to the game, it just magically pops up from the ground where it never existed before.

New resources just need to be incorporated into the broader structure of crafting. So instead of going "I need to only farm this newest item" you go "I need to go this newest item on top of everything else I was farming before this". And due to your time being limited, you can only choose one place to farm. This would distribute the playerbase across the content and would let weaker players start farming stuff that only the strong players could farm before, because the strong dudes are now farming the newest locations.

Make the older stuff drop just a bit more often and you now have weaker players that are rapidly gaining on the stronger ones, while strong ones are fighting amongst each other for the new stuff, all the while they all still need resources from all the previous locations.

This is roughly how Lineage 2 worked, except its gear tiers were a bit more separated in their core mats, which I think Ashes could change for the better (cause I believe SWG did and Ashes is going for a similar system).

Imagine you enhanced and upon gear decay it was weaker than when you gambled to enhance lol.

Seriously don't understand some peoples desire to make the game a living hell for people. Trying to take a system and make it in the most unfun way possible with stats loss.

If you think there is not enough resource sink than the simple answer is to make things cost more to be made and to repair. Not trying to be like only those 8 pieces of gear you have you are losing 3-5% of stats and not you are losing about 15-20% total stats and now you need spend months getting the gear again after you had been using the gear for less than a month...

Ludullu

Mag7spy wrote: »

Imagine you enhanced and upon gear decay it was weaker than when you gambled to enhance lol.

That's how it should be

Mag7spy wrote: »

Seriously don't understand some peoples desire to make the game a living hell for people. Trying to take a system and make it in the most unfun way possible with stats loss.

If you think there is not enough resource sink than the simple answer is to make things cost more to be made and to repair. Not trying to be like only those 8 pieces of gear you have you are losing 3-5% of stats and not you are losing about 15-20% total stats and now you need spend months getting the gear again after you had been using the gear for less than a month..

Yeah, there's a ton of ways to address this w/o making the system super hardcore or unfun. I'm sure we'll go through months of testing this in alpha2 in 2030

Mag7spy

NiKr wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Imagine you enhanced and upon gear decay it was weaker than when you gambled to enhance lol.

That's how it should be

Mag7spy wrote: »

Seriously don't understand some peoples desire to make the game a living hell for people. Trying to take a system and make it in the most unfun way possible with stats loss.

If you think there is not enough resource sink than the simple answer is to make things cost more to be made and to repair. Not trying to be like only those 8 pieces of gear you have you are losing 3-5% of stats and not you are losing about 15-20% total stats and now you need spend months getting the gear again after you had been using the gear for less than a month..

Yeah, there's a ton of ways to address this w/o making the system super hardcore or unfun. I'm sure we'll go through months of testing this in alpha2 in 2030

Ya i try to comment sometimes but like i need to see things working in alpha 2 to give proper feedback and understand how the systems work lol.

People are hyper focused on one element without thinking about all the other things as well that it also connects to.

MrPockets

Mag7spy wrote: »

Seriously don't understand some peoples desire to make the game a living hell for people. Trying to take a system and make it in the most unfun way possible with stats loss.

It's not that we are discussing ways to make the game unfun, but we are trying to discuss how the crafting/economy side can be MORE fun. And part of this discussion totally is: does an idea impact other parts of the game and make those LESS fun?

But it is important to not lose sight of the ultimate goal of this topic: making the player run economy fun/engaging to those interested in that part of the game.

Statements like: "peoples desire to make the game a living hell for people" is just going to cause discourse and squabbling within a thread.

Instead you could say something like: "I think losing stats on gear is too harsh of a penalty and the game would be less fun"

Arya_Yeshe

I think the current model is enough, there's durability damage and if the durability goes to zero then you need more materials and you could salvage equipment

Still doesn't fix the situation of "make an item and use it for 10 years"

Veeshan

Terrifying_Truth wrote: »

the only thing that happens when no items are removed from the game is that the devs will force longer grinds and higher prices

not having item removal from the game is what multiply the amount of chores all around in every system and every farm

overall, the quality of a game improves when there is item removal since the grinds and chores can be scaled down and then you can let people to have stuff

everybody wins with item removal, casuals win, grinders win, crafters win and everybody else win

Also not having itesm removed from game also means the couple of crafter that rush ahead get everything at the start of the game and everyone to slow or slightly behind gets a resource sink with 0 payouts, and then all crafters have 0 market for there goods when everyone gets high end gear because the players needed upgraded gear reduces when people start getting BIS items or close enough too it that people are happy with what they have. So basicly it a rush to get ahead to get early game cash from players leveling which completely disapears as game goes on or ur to slow with leveling a craft (only exception is consumable crafting). Crafters die out the moment people get there gear up there and they kinda dont have a job anymore till next expansiuon adding to gear treadmill.

There need to be some way to keep there armor/weapons relevants either via using the completed weapon as repair components or via gear breaking as it being used and needing replaced regulary to keep those crafters relevant throughout the game now it can last awhile especialy high end gear but it needs to decay in some way or form to keep a demand on all crafted goods if you want a player run economy or those trades will stagnate.
The more acceptable way of doing so i guess is having completed items be salvaged into repair components so like a blue crafted sword can be salvaged into blue sword quality repair kits that are used to repair x durability from blue quality swords and so on.
people get attatched to there equipment for some reason or another i find so breaking it completly and buying new one i guess can be a turn off but the above suggestion probaly will work for both side of the coin reasonably well since u need the wholecrafting process and keep crafted equipable equipment always relevant instead of just using processed materials to repair which cuts out the final crafters. And i prefer completed equipment to be the repair mats over say repair kits because it keeps a sword relevant instead of the meta shifting to just making repair kits and nevber craft a weapon again unless specificly asked for one by new players. it suck for newbies going to AH and cant find a sword cause blacksmiths are only making repair kits to sell cause the economy meta shifted to repair kits since 99% oif the server is equiped up

Depraved

Goalid wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

The magic of reading the wiki

I guess you're referring to the item sinks from the over-enchantment system. I just can't see that ever working long term at end game. Plus it's basically a "we'll pick random players to screw over based off RNG by blowing up their gear!" which is awful. And this system only works on enchantable items, and not items like mounts. And it doent prevent over-saturation of middle-tier items since you're only over-enchanting the highest quality gear to begin with.

its actually good long term and worse short term =x

Depraved

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

I think the current model is enough, there's durability damage and if the durability goes to zero then you need more materials and you could salvage equipment

Still doesn't fix the situation of "make an item and use it for 10 years"

you wont use an item for 10 years..probably not even 5, probs not even 3. there will be new items added, new expansions, level cap increase, etc etc

Diamaht

Well, I think the OP is talking more about item sinks instead of resource sinks. He's worried that high power gear will make the economy go stale as time goes on and fewer people need them.

Current MMOs solve this with periodic expansions that invalidate older gear with higher level gear.

If gear is always being replaced by stronger stuff then we are fine. If not then the OP has a point.

Kilion

Diamaht wrote: »

Well, I think the OP is talking more about item sinks instead of resource sinks. He's worried that high power gear will make the economy go stale as time goes on and fewer people need them.

Current MMOs solve this with periodic expansions that invalidate older gear with higher level gear.

If gear is always being replaced by stronger stuff then we are fine. If not then the OP has a point.

The thing is that the base assumption is not applying. The concern about "Meta" has been huge in all regards time and time again. Be it class Meta, story arch Meta or gear Meta. And in all cases the underlying assumption has to be "there is 1 best in slot option". And that is where these threads fall apart every time, because that does not apply to Ashes, if Intrepid keep their word and manage to pull it off correctly. Ashes won't have a Meta.

To give you one of the clearest indicators for that, I'll share this quote from Steven, found here: "You're not going to get one set of armor that's going to be situationally relevant for every encounter you might face - that's crazy - and as a result of that you're going to have to succeed in acquiring sets that are situationally relevant for the types of encounters you are intending to face." That in itself will be a huge Meta-breaking factor. Trying to get a set of armor for all possible things in the game will be a lot of work and by the time you are done and you have a lot of fireproof armor for the elementals coming from the Volcano raid dungeon, the Tier 6 Node that opened that dungeon, may have fallen, the dungeon closes and the armor becomes "uselss" as the Node at the coast that takes over the region causes a bunch of sea creatures to attack.

"Well in that case with enough time I still will be able to have a set for all occasions." - might become the argument for some. And that would be true if (1) we assume that storage space is big enough for that and (2) the place of the gear storage would never fall so that the items won't ever disappear in the destruction.

And now after accounting all that just because of gear alone, we would have to look at class "meta", content "meta" and economy "meta" which all are subject to vast change at unpredictable times.

Which then brings me back to my conclusion: The assumption that there will be a universal or prolonged Meta in Ashes is in all likelihood fals.

MrPockets

Kilion wrote: »

The thing is that the base assumption is not applying. The concern about "Meta" has been huge in all regards time and time again. Be it class Meta, story arch Meta or gear Meta. And in all cases the underlying assumption has to be "there is 1 best in slot option". And that is where these threads fall apart every time, because that does not apply to Ashes, if Intrepid keep their word and manage to pull it off correctly. Ashes won't have a Meta.

I totally understand your argument, but I don't know if "meta gear" has anything to do with the idea that crafting market/economy will slowly shrink with time.

I totally understand that if players "need" multiple gear sets, that means the market starts out very large. Now is it large enough? I think that's the underlying question being proposed by those of us concerned with the apparent lack of item sinks.

The thing that an item sink offers, is that it ensures the market will be large enough, forever.

Let me lay out a couple examples to help explain:
Situation 1)
MMO has a limited number of "meta" gear sets that players can get. Most players end up getting this gear in about ~3 months.

Situation 2)
MMO has a large number of specialized gear sets that players can get, many players will want to collect most of them. Players end up getting all this gear in about ~12 months.

Situation 3)
MMO has an established item sink, that requires players to constantly "re-acquire" gear. Maybe this is used to repair their current gear, or maybe their gear broke and they need to replace it.

Situation 1 & 2 are basically the same...eventually players can reach a point where they are "done". As more players reach that point, there becomes less and less demand for the gear, leading to crafters having less reason to play the game (assuming they are full time crafting players).

I agree that situation 2 is better than 1, since it helps mitigate this problem for crafters...but situation 3 eliminates the problem. In situation 3, getting new gear, and interacting with the economy becomes a regular part of the gameplay loop, and the market never shrinks. Crafters can craft to their hearts content and they will always have a large market to interact with.

Diamaht

"Well in that case with enough time I still will be able to have a set for all occasions."

Yes, this.

Ashes will 100 percent have a meta. If its a diverse meta then the economic stagnation will take longer, but it will still occur.

Guys, we can't rationalize away a natural economic process that has happened in nearly every MMO or quasi MMO (like Diablo or Path of Exiles) ever made. There has to be a solution in place for it, that doesn't assume "there won't be a meta". There will be a Meta.

We need ways for items to leave the economy or be replaced. Again level cap increases take care of that. If there are long stretches with no level cap changes then there must be some other method of controlling item stagnation.

I understand that no one wants to lose items forever, and thats fine. However, baring that, what other methods can be used to prevent the issue that will 100 percent present itself after a few years?

Galaturc

I am with the OP. As someone whose first gaming experiences were with UO and SWG, I have a fondness for degradation, repair, and the risk of item destruction during the repair process. However, modern theme-park games, emphasizing rare, epic, and legendary items, have shifted away from this dynamic, prioritizing permanence and diminishing the role of crafters. These games require a constant influx of new "rare" items in each DLC to fuel the crafting system, as each new item replaces the previous one. While games like WoW and ESO have proven this to be a viable model for theme-park games, it doesn't sit quite right with me. I yearn for a more "hardcore" or survival-based approach, similar to the UO system I originally loved.

Mag7spy

MrPockets wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Seriously don't understand some peoples desire to make the game a living hell for people. Trying to take a system and make it in the most unfun way possible with stats loss.

It's not that we are discussing ways to make the game unfun, but we are trying to discuss how the crafting/economy side can be MORE fun. And part of this discussion totally is: does an idea impact other parts of the game and make those LESS fun?

But it is important to not lose sight of the ultimate goal of this topic: making the player run economy fun/engaging to those interested in that part of the game.

Statements like: "peoples desire to make the game a living hell for people" is just going to cause discourse and squabbling within a thread.

Instead you could say something like: "I think losing stats on gear is too harsh of a penalty and the game would be less fun"

You are missing the other part of my comment in your quote you forgot that....Also saying you are making he game a living hell for people is very much a critique. Harsh is a understatement when you realize on paper what they have been talking about which I also already explained but logic isn't what people respond to.

Mag7spy

Galaturc wrote: »

I am with the OP. As someone whose first gaming experiences were with UO and SWG, I have a fondness for degradation, repair, and the risk of item destruction during the repair process. However, modern theme-park games, emphasizing rare, epic, and legendary items, have shifted away from this dynamic, prioritizing permanence and diminishing the role of crafters. These games require a constant influx of new "rare" items in each DLC to fuel the crafting system, as each new item replaces the previous one. While games like WoW and ESO have proven this to be a viable model for theme-park games, it doesn't sit quite right with me. I yearn for a more "hardcore" or survival-based approach, similar to the UO system I originally loved.

AoC is not going to be a hardcore survival mmo, so them taking that route is extremely unlikely. I'm confident people supporting the game would be very annoyed nor matches the vision they are going for.

I'm not vested in UO so I'm unsure what things you are talking about from that.

I feel in this thread there is an extreme lack of knowledge on AoC and people are suggesting things without understanding a decent scope of the game.

I am super against item destruction from randomness and enhancing because i believe there is more modern solutions you can use that aren't as frustrating but more time consuming and rare. Though until other wise I'll have to assume item destruction through enhancing will be in the game.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Item_deconstruction

Unless you have played BDO you have no clue even remotely had bad things can get...you can spend a whole year and have shit if they want to design it like that. You could have lost months of progress on gear and have nothing if you gamble and I'm not exaggerating.

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