The Threading Mechanic

Howbadisbad

Wondering if anyone can expand on the mechanic of threading your items so they don't drop when you get killed.

• How easy is it to thread items? Is there a limit on how many items you can thread?
• Does threading only decrease the chance of items dropping?
• Is it reasonable to expect everyone to always have all gear threaded once the game progresses?
• Is there any kind of mechanic to remove gear from the game? (like equipment degrading or destroyed on death)
• Does threading still cause you to lose your gear, your attacker just can't pick it up?

BlueMountain

To adequately respond let me provide a caveat for your consideration. Threading has yet to be seen in Alpha and will likely not be seen until player looting is enabled. So what I am about to say may not be fully accurate, but it is my understanding from what the designers had said and what I and others have inferred.

Currently in alpha character death is fairly painless. You only suffer a little bit of durability loss in equipped gear. Starter gear has 20 'lives'. It starts at 20/20, and if your character dies with an item equipped it falls to 19/20. When it gets down to 0/20, then the next time you die it will be gone. It looks like Tier 2 items will have greater durability, more 'lives'. There is also supposed to be a 'repair' skill that crafters will earn.

Once the PvP looting systems are released and the threading mechanic is working, item degradation will still be in place but instead of respawning with all of your inventory still in your backpack only those items you had equipped will still be with your respawned character. This is the most basic expression of 'threading'. It is possible that items in your inventory that are not equipped may be actively threaded by some means, but at least the things you are carrying currently still remain with you. After threading is enabled if you run back to your character's down corpse, which takes some time to despawn, then unless someone looted the corpse you will find your harvest still on your body, except for a portion that was destroyed... I think you lose 25% upon death.

Others may loot a portion your corpse before you arrive, for example the character who killed your character will have 'rights' to your unthreaded stuff, but they will only be able to take part of it: the rest is destroyed. There are to be measures in place to dissuade others who didn't killed you from stealing from the dead. I think others in your group, if you were grouped, will be able to loot your corpse to hold for you but I'm not sure.

Another thing to bear in mind in the matter of threading is that the more powerful an item is the more threads it will take to hold it. That means at some point you will have to decide what exactly you want to thread of your equipped or unequipped items because threads are always of a finite number. At some point you are most likely going to have to decide to invest threads in your spellbook and staff, or your +4 Longbow or what have you and which items you are willing to leave to the mercy of chance.

The number of threads available to you are thought to be variable, depending on choices you make, skills you gain, r by other means.

Overall though you should be able, with care, to manage your risks.

Did I adequately respond to your question?

BlueMountain

Oh, also there will eventually be player characters who train as assassins. A very interesting and rather unusual role of skills and with very interesting counters for those who expect to be the target of assassins (a settlement's Seneschal should be an early example). One (or more) of an assassins skills, as I understand it, is the ability to sever one or more of the target's threads.

Howbadisbad

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Originally posted by BlueMountain
To adequately respond let me provide a caveat for your consideration. Threading has yet to be seen in Alpha and will likely not be seen until player looting is enabled. So what I am about to say may not be fully accurate, but it is my understanding from what the designers had said and what I and others have inferred.Currently in alpha character death is fairly painless. You only suffer a little bit of durability loss in equipped gear. Starter gear has 20 'lives'. It starts at 20/20, and if your character dies with an item equipped it falls to 19/20. When it gets down to 0/20, then the next time you die it will be gone. It looks like Tier 2 items will have greater durability, more 'lives'. There is also supposed to be a 'repair' skill that crafters will earn.Once the PvP looting systems are released and the threading mechanic is working, item degradation will still be in place but instead of respawning with all of your inventory still in your backpack only those items you had equipped will still be with your respawned character. This is the most basic expression of 'threading'. It is possible that items in your inventory that are not equipped may be actively threaded by some means, but at least the things you are carrying currently still remain with you. After threading is enabled if you run back to your character's down corpse, which takes some time to despawn, then unless someone looted the corpse you will find your harvest still on your body, except for a portion that was destroyed... I think you lose 25% upon death.Others may loot a portion your corpse before you arrive, for example the character who killed your character will have 'rights' to your unthreaded stuff, but they will only be able to take part of it: the rest is destroyed. There are to be measures in place to dissuade others who didn't killed you from stealing from the dead. I think others in your group, if you were grouped, will be able to loot your corpse to hold for you but I'm not sure.Another thing to bear in mind in the matter of threading is that the more powerful an item is the more threads it will take to hold it. That means at some point you will have to decide what exactly you want to thread of your equipped or unequipped items because threads are always of a finite number. At some point you are most likely going to have to decide to invest threads in your spellbook and staff, or your +4 Longbow or what have you and which items you are willing to leave to the mercy of chance.The number of threads available to you are thought to be variable, depending on choices you make, skills you gain, r by other means.Overall though you should be able, with care, to manage your risks.Did I adequately respond to your question?

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Yes, thank you.

MumboJumbo

Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves

Some Good Reason for Your Little Black Backpack

Here's a couple of blog posts (they are being delivered over time and changing over time note) on the cluster of inter-related systems:-

• Threading items options and restrictions
• Character Death and rescued items by threading or by corpse/husk retrieval
• Encumbrance of items a character can carry
• Looting players (from the other pov) corpses/husks options
• Item degradation and destruction on character death that feeds the sink that fuels the economy
• Death Penalty vs Looting Reward: Striking a fine balance: Not too harsh nor not too lucrative!
• Potential separate economy by-product of the system of threading
• Lore surrounding threading and Pharasma's Mark (resurrection shrines).

So you can see Pathfinder Online is a really interesting Sandbox design (at least intended as the systems are developed and deployed gradually) and how they are meant to interact and combine with each other mutually.