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Crafting, RVR, and death penalty. Crafted weapons/armour need to be lost.
Stiler
Member Posts: 599
When it comes to crafting in games, one of the major designs that is absolutely needed, to help keep the economy healthy and going, is that you need a way for crafted items to keep revolving in the market, having old items going out, new items coming out, keep the market turning, apart from simply "new players buying" them.
If you have no need to buy new crafting items the economy becomes stale, crafters lose part of the market (IE when a end level player buys armour/weapons and then no longer needs them). This also affects players becaues they lose a valuable money sink in the game.
In my experience there are two ways to do this. item looting and item degradation There are two games that did this that had healthy crafter focused economies.
In UO you handled this by full looting in pvp, you die, you lose all your items. However the game was built around this. Yo ucould fin da crafter, buy new gear, it wasn't too hard to the point you wanted to pull your hair out and scream about it, but it made death have a little sting to it. You could buy new armour from crafters and it kept armour coming and going and didn't nlet the economy become stale.
Another way , was used in SWG. It had item degradation. As you fought in game (pve or pvp) your equipped items took damage over time. You could repair them, but everytime you repaired them it took down the overall quality of them(lowero oquality stats, etc), the longer and longer you used an item and kept repairing them eventually you would want to buy new items.
CU could take this further in various ways with RVR.
With "looting" as an example, you could allow this be a way for players to get equipment from other realms (which isn't available from crafters of that realm) as well as vice versa. You could even allow "receipeis" for armour and weapons to be randomly dropped with looting that crafters could acquire to open new things.
Even if it goes for non-looting it coudl still allow crafters to find new armour/weapon receipies like this, I think that'd be fun.
I hope that CU uses at least one of these. If Crafing is inteded as a focus of the game you need a way to do this.
As far as the "death penalty" you need something that hurts a bit when you die. "Running back" isn't that bad of a thing to most people, though in DAOC running back was usually a LOT lo nger then newer mmos.
Having loot, or even equipped armour/weapon degradation which is HIGHER if you die (IE things still need to degrade through use, not just dying) but when you die in RVR the degradation should be higher to provide both a penality to dying and a reason not to die.
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DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
That's a terrible idea OP. I don't want to worry about my items getting destroyed while playing.
DAoC - Excalibur & Camlann
There was always a demand for weapons and armor in the market place for all levels 20+ due to the battlegrounds. Players wanted to twink their characters with 99/100% quality weapons/armor that was definately repairable its just lowered the durability on the item so eventually you would find yourself back at the auction zone looking for more items.
Also potions were high in demand aswell.
edit. duration = durability
I think SWG had a good thing going with item degradation as well. It made you want to look for the good crafters so you could shop around for the best bang for your buck. It was a great system for the economy and crafters until the hologrind came out. Then I was no longer able to buy weapons from my favorite weaponsmith becuase he was macro dancing in the cantina.
If something like that goes in though, then there needs to be a way for non-crafters to be able to make a decent income so they can continue with their equipement upkeep. Other than that then yeh, I'm all for it.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Having permanent death penalites in PvP would be awful. It would discourage players to try anything hard and the zerg would rule. DAoC worked well for crafters without that. Even the decreasing durability was so low that it didn't realy matter. Nor were there any player bound items (at least not significant ones pre ToA artifacts). And there was still a good economy.
There are plenty of other good ways to ensure a healthy economy without discuraging players from taking any risks. There are also full loot games sandbox out there but I think this is not a game directed at this crowd.
There will be tons of things for players to be buying, potions, new housing structures, siege, maybe even charges for the armor.
Also you could always make it so that the best resources in the game are in contested areas making it harder to get those resources and thus harder to make the top tier items, forcing players to start off with lesser items. Also depding on how gear is done, you could come out with a new armor piece which would make the min/maxers redo their templates.
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Unless I am missing something, this game will NOT have a "gear grind". So, replacing gear shouldn't be a huge burden. Sure, some pieces may cost more or require a really great crafter to make, but it shouldn't be a grind.
I think DAoC crafting was awesome (though skilling was boring - perhaps a necessary evil to keep crafters fairly low in number). You may not have sold tons of items but it was enough to support yourself with a slight profit. 99/100% items were in demand enough that they were very valuable at all times.
If they kept that crafting system and perhaps gave crafters the ability to add customization to item appearances and maybe timed buffs to the weapons/armor themselves I think it would be good enough to have crafting have meaning. Like perhaps adding a 3/5/7 day +20 damage buff to a crafted sword or 5% heat resist to a chest for 3/5/7 days. That on top of the gradual item decay being repairable by crafters (with eventual item loss due to prolonged use) would make crafting a constant demand without making it overly taxing on the player to constantly have to seek them out.
All massive losses at death and harsh penalties would do is reinforce zerg combat and tower/keep humping. You may think it adds skill and suspense but most folks would simply say 'screw that I'm not losing my stuff' and avoid any fight that's not a 99% win and most fights would be little touchy-feely skirmishes where neither side wants to rush in. I think it would also make melee (who usually get focus fired down the minute they close into a useful range) even less attractive in fights.
I'd be more interested in methods of dissolving the blobs and promoting open-field battles like supply routes that genuinely needed to be escorted or multi-point assaults/defenses to divide forces. But I suppose that's another topic.
@OP i agree item loss is a total must if they want crafting to be important in a game..
For e i would do a combination of both full loot and item degregation.
It's not the same sort of pvp as games Like daoc and planetside where you will die a lot, and you need momentum to take keeps. If people had to break off rvr to run back to town and craft a basic armour set every 3rd time they died or something, rvr wouldn't work.
I disagree with it in games where pvp is governed primarily by territory capture involving lengthy seiges.
I also disagree you need full loot to make crafting important. Crafting was important in daoc. It's tiered raiding and associated wtfpwn gear EQ/wow style that makes crafting meaningless.
I wonder if they had a system for charging magical items similar to elder scrolls if that could keep crafters busy. Or another option a real time decay, e.g. you make a fire sword but it has a life time of 2 weeks in real time, after that its just a normal sword, could add a nice mechanic to crafting where you can add longevity at a cost of power.
As per usual I tend to agree with ShakyMo.
I was a big fan of UO and PvP in UO back in the day, but in order to combat the annoyance of having to replace all my armor and weapons every time I died I just filled my bank with gear sets in different bags.
Was pretty quick to just run to bank in my death robe, grab a gear set bag, equip and go back to fighting.
But that was 12+ years ago.
I think having to replace worn weapons/armor every couple of weeks or some such would be a good thing.
But as ShakyMo said, the reason that worked in UO or EvE is because there really isn't different quality of gear - you don't have the whole EQ/WoW uncommon/rare/epic/legendary etc.
SWG I think failed really, really hard in this aspect.
Sure you had item durability, but also really rare/expensive components so it was pretty much the worst parts of the two ideologies.
It'd be like having item durability/decay and item loss in WoW. Pointless grind to replace is pointless.
If I remember right, UO you had some things like Silver weapons which were good for Undead, but you'd never use them in Felucca (PvP). You also had +1 weapons that did a little more damage, and I'd remember using them in PvP only when I was running with a full posse of my friends so I had less chance of losing them.
I like that kind of thing - risk vs. reward.
But you take the risk too far, the reward has to swing out too far too to stay balanced - but then people become afraid to commit anything to a fight unless it is a sure victory - and that completely ruins all incentive to fight.
It also makes Stealth classes and other "First Strike" PvP builds with the ability to control the terms of engagement incredibly OP.
Which is what pretty much happens in EvE most of the time and it's awful.
You have to give people SOME risk in order to prevent PvP from just being a "zerg till you win" game where all you are really doing is throwing corpses at an enemy until they break.
You have to have attrition.
But take it too far, it becomes a game of turtling and the only time any one side becomes aggressive is when victory is a statistical surety.
Uh i'm glad to hear that. This guy knows what he is doing. If they implemented durability system like you people say here, people would move only in zergs, and they would be afraid of dying even more than in daoc. They would just wait and wait and wait... We need action.
Also want to add -
I like the idea of "special" weapons or pieces of armor etc. that a player can earn that does last forever and doesn't decay and can't be looted or destroyed in PvP.
But again you really have to limit it.
If everyone has a "special" sword - they aren't really all that cool.
Like how the Elves name famous swords and such in the LOTR books, seems like every sword/knife/dagger has a name and a story. Not cool.
It'd have to be a reward for truly exceptional in-game play.
Like the absolute best PvP'ers on the server/shard could become Generals and lead sieges/defenses etc.
And if they do a really good job as a General, the best of them can commishion a team of the best crafters on their server to make a special weapon or item/piece of armor etc. for that General.
But even with all that, the "cool" factor would have to be 99% of it.
I'm talking about like a +1 on stats for the Legendary weapon, and the fact it can't be destroyed/looted or decay.
Not like +50 stats and a special dmg effect or group buff etc. they CAN'T be OP at all.
The cynic in me thinks having "top player gets all the cool stuff" would open the system to exploitation and really only serve those that can stand to play long hours.
However, the MMO vet in me thinks having "top player gets all the cool stuff" would open the system to exploitation and really only serve those that can stand to play long hours.
So you want to RVR and never have to worry about dying? You want to die, simply walk back and that's it?
Death needs to have a penalty to it, and Item degradation, or loss (whichever) is a way to provide both this PLUS help keep the player ecnomomy healthy and going.
It has to be balanced of course, you want to find the sweet spot where when you die, it sucks, but it's not too frustrating for th eplayer (UO and SWG was fine, it did NOT discourage pvp in any way shape or form, it just made dying something you wanted to avoid, but not to the point you didn't pvp or hav efun doing it).
I didn't mention any "permanent" panalities, this just affects your items, either through looting or degradation of said equipped items. Which you could then either repair or buy new ones.
This is something that is extremely needed if you want a healthy playerr economy, if tihere's no item degradation through use/death, then you end up with the crafters making items that never leave the marketplace and thus down the line when players hit the "level cap" and end game and get the best gear from crafters, they will never have to buy any new gear and the market will be flooded with items coming in it, but none going out.
It will lead to an artifical cap that will destroy the pricing of items for newer players and crafters.
It is something that would haveto be balanced. It worked fine in SWG (degradation of gear). It wasn't something you "Constantly" had to do, even if you pvp'd a lot.
Also you are aware, CU is going to be focused on player crafting right? There's no "gear grind" becuase there's no NPC's that drop loot. It's focused on player crafting and buying from them. That is why this kind of system is EXTREMELY needed, lest you screw up the economy of the game as it grows and gets older (With all gear coming in and none leaving the game).
Think about it if it was the real world. If people could be vehicles, tv's, computers, etc that never broke, never got "old" how oscrewed up would our economy be?
It worked fine in UO, the game was built around open pvp (you could be killed anywhere outside of main cities). It wasn't uncommon to die multiple times within a few hours from pkers, or fighting pkers or enemy guilds, etc.
You didnt have to "craft" new armor, you bought it from other crafters and generally many people had a stockpile of backup gear stored at the bank (for quick access when they needed it) or their house, Value of gear wasn't absurdly high that it made losing yours make you want to not pvp, but it still sucked to loes things (especially if you gathered some things , such as regents for spells and other things ).
SWG, unlike WoW and other games though was not loot-focused gear game. The game was a player focused economy. There was no "Grind" for gear, you bought it from crafters.
The crafters determined the quality of gear, thi swas one of the main reasons crafting in SWG was fun for people, not all crafters were created "equal," people could makea name for themselves by having high quality goods.
The degradation of gear in SWG never discouraged pvp (in my experience playing it), it just made the economy keep turning, which is something you NEED if you want player crafting to be a focus.
WoW gear is VASTLY different then SWG, the economy of WoW is focused toward looting (and yes I know it has crafting) but the economy is not player focused/built. You would have to raid raid raid for hours to potentinally get good gear in WoW.
in SWG, you simply had to visit a crafter and buy weapons/armour fromt hem, it wasn't a "Grind" to get it.
It isn't pointless, as it serves two purposes, making death have a penality (lest with no penalty it takes away the suspense and importance of not dying, hell I know poeple that used dying in WoW an dother games with little to no penalty just to fast travel back to a city) and also ensuring tihat players will keep having to buy gear from crafters, which is important if you want a healthy player economy.
As I have said before, it's something that has to be balanced and tweak. Finding the good spot where items decay at a rate that is not too harsh that it discourages pvp and makes poeple "not wnat to fight" but also where it's not "so minimal that death means nothing and you don't care about dying."
Uh i'm glad to hear that. This guy knows what he is doing. If they implemented durability system like you people say here, people would move only in zergs, and they would be afraid of dying even more than in daoc. They would just wait and wait and wait... We need action.
People SHOULD be afraid of dying, do you not think so? However finding the balance where yea, dying sucks, but it's sitll fun to pvp is something that has to be tested and tweaked through development.
If people aren't afraid of dying it takes away some aspects of fighting imo. Of all the mmo's I've played with PVP, systems with 0 death penalty or too little it wasn't nearly as fun or exciting as pvp that had penalities that mattereda nd made you want to fight all the more better so as not to die.
SWG had a great decay system, but I'm not sure how well such a system would work in a game like CU. I'd rather see crafters have a use outside of items, something like MJ described would make a much better fit IMO. Crafters fixing buildings and that sort of thing, making them the support behind RVR rather than the lifeblood of equipment would fit a PVP environemnt quite well.
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