Lots of great comments, everybody!
This is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping for when I started down this path.
The one comment I feel I need to respond to immediately was this:
danger powers: Rather than a cap on the number of repairs I would like to see something like a "drastic repair error" introduced.Honestly, I think this is a very bad idea. If there's one thing people would hate worse than their stuff breaking, it's their stuff breaking randomly. That's why, of all the proposed ways to implement item decay I've seen, this is the one I liked best. It's predictable. (On the heels of that, I should mention -- in response to everyone who pointed out how quickly durability goes away in the game today -- that it was my intent with this design that we would regulate that so durability loss is quite a bit slower.)
posted by MrTact @ 3:30 PM
15 comments
15 Comments:
Tact, got any comments that you could post (preferably on this blog) about my post
http://boards.stratics.com/php-bin/uo/showflat.php?Cat=1&Board=uouhall&Number=5753496&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&what2=postlist&fpart=
I would prefer it here so you can comment on development styles / systems etc.
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EDIT
I feel the need to bring forth issues with Felucca. I think that Felucca ought to use the "fall" display set instead of the badlands it currently has now. Badlands is so damn unappealing and I think that is one of the reasons people stay out of there. Another issue would be the itembased PVP, void insurances in felucca and people would tend to go toward skillbased PVP again. Unless they dare to risk their nifty items.
Another issue is the Yew "swamp" set. Many citizens of Yew cross the shards think that Yew ought to be restored to the pretty town it used to be. Install a sewer! Of course there's the problem with playerowned houses in the viscinity, but I still think it would be possible to revamp Yew and make it a nicer place. Remove the swamp, fill it with grass. Restore the houses and make it what Yew used to be.
Have you thought about allowing items already in game to retain their original qualities and making all new items slightly better but with decay activated? You can keep the items you have worked for and decide whether or not it is worth it to work for new items with a shelf life?
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Thanks for pickin me to reply to MrTact! I see where you're coming from. I admit that I'm the first to curse the random generator when I get a few fails in a row of a task I would expect to succeed at... that can be drastic if you're repairing a suit of armor and end up knocking down 10% of several pieces max HP. I suppose it doesn't really matter which system is used as long as the appropriate tuning happens. I don't agree w/ you on how long a piece of armor should last because well I powergame, often playing 30-40 hours a week and personally i would loathe added time overhead to deal w/ equipment replacements.
This seems to be consistent w/ something that I think has been a problem in UO for a long long time... the inability to address improvements and adjustments to the game in such a way that maximizes fun during gameplay. Examples of positive moves in this direction:
LRC - (I hated making reg bags for every adventure... complete waste of time for just simple mechanics)
Auto Corpse looting - It's crazy to think that we were so complacent with reorganizing our packs after every single death for 6 years.
And frankly I'd throw the proposed decay changes into the opposite category. These changes belong in the category of items with: ancient life bars that are class specific, pet bar issues, all bar issues w/ death etc. We deal with so much inconvenience as players that frankly I'm amazed. I don't like your proposals Tact because I don't want to have to spend the time I used to spend filling reagent bags replacing holes in my armor that come about from general use.
I want to PLAY uo. I like the process of getting new equipment and building the perfect suit or trying to achieve it. If the pieces of armor I need are in a constant state of turnover I will cease to look for the right pieces of armor to fill in the gaps.
As much as I like the idea of giving control over properties on items crafted if it's an bonus to offset the decay of items I can't get behind it. The promise of it is that you can make the specific armor you want for a specific need w/ the right components and skill. But needs in these areas are so specific people are always shopping for a very specific set of properties... selling items on vendors trying to predict those needs is a pain. I think this indirectly would motivate more player to player crafter interaction which would be a good thing but there are much better ways to accomplish that as well.
I'm not dead set on my idea of 10% for a rare "drastic failure" or any other mechanism. Personally I would prefer a system that allowed for more of a chance of luck than your described plan allows for and for a much slower decay that allows people to really get good use out of an item before it dissapears.
And as a final point against this idea I think that it's a bad idea to just throw a carrot of higher intensities and new combinations at players as a workaround to a real problem. I was thrilled when SOSs got a big loot bump unfortunately so did mongbats and good loot all of the sudden became harder to sell then snow in January. Don't put crafters in this situation. Crafters need a fix that doesn't saturate the market further with high intensity stuff.
I think if you ask most crafters when they were most successfull and having the most fun in UO they would tell you the following:
They enjoyed times when they could make high quality items that were sought after specifically by lots of players (colored sandals, barbed kit armor when intensities were the best in the game) way over the times when they sold beater barbed kit suits for 3k each.
When high intensity stuff is new and hot people scramble to get it and crafters do well. That is not the state of things at all right now. There is an abundance of high intensity stuff. The proposed changes benefit the people with a legendary mule most of all. They will be able to hunt and use their own character to get the resources needed to make the best suits. The average tailor trying to make money making armor isn't going to get significantly more business from vendors or walk up requests than they do now because it's difficult to match buyer and seller with equipment as diverse as it is today.
- danger powers
PS... can we please get properties added to kit made cloth hats?
One thing Id like to see changes? The way regular crafting tools work! Id like to see:
Regular Hammer/Sewing Kit-
0-5 Properties (chance scaled accordingly)
1-100% intensity
200 charges* (debatable)
*-Id also like to see crafters who are RP crafters be able to turn properties 'off' in their crafting menu and allow items crafted without properties to use 1 charge, and with properties to use 2 charges per property created.
The idea also would be that your skill in crafting would effect your chance to increase the # of properties and intensity of them that you get (similar to how luck effects loot drops) such that at GM you have a 100% of normal chance, at 110 youd have +5% and at 120 +10%
Id also rescale the runic kits as follows:
Spined
1-5 Properties
50-100% intensity
60 charges
Horned
2-5 Properties
65-100% intensity
40 charges
Barbed
3-5 Properties
80-100% intensity
20 charges
Scale accordingly also for hammers! :-)
The result would be
a.) normal crafters could have a chance to craft decent items with normal hammers. As a reuslt, normal hammer prices (and resource requirements) should be increased such that a hammer costs 1,000gp on an NPC
b.) runics (especially low-end) become more useful, but not required for crafting, because essentially all they do is make your results more guaranteed.
I, for one, was perfectly content to outfit my characters with GM gear prior to AoS. With AoS, you folks at OSI (rip) made that GM gear about as desirable as the junk one can get from NPC vendors. Unfortunately, we pretty much had to chase after uber items because AoS made items much more of a requirement in UO than ever before. The one consolation was that, with insurance and reasonable care, once you got some good gear you could keep it just about forever. Now you say you want to make that gear wear out. Go figure…
Frankly, I’m tired of it. UO needs content, not another scheme to force us into an endless chase after uber loot. All that glitters is not gold and I’ll be darned if I am going to be forced to chase my gear down again.
I, for one, was perfectly content to outfit my characters with GM gear prior to AoS. With AoS, you folks at OSI (rip) made that GM gear about as desirable as the junk one can get from NPC vendors. Unfortunately, we pretty much had to chase after uber items because AoS made items much more of a requirement in UO than ever before. The one consolation was that, with insurance and reasonable care, once you got some good gear you could keep it just about forever. Now you say you want to make that gear wear out. Go figure…
Frankly, I’m tired of it. UO needs content, not another scheme to force us into an endless chase after uber loot. All that glitters is not gold and I’ll be darned if I am going to be forced to chase my gear down again.
We also need more then 10 repair charges. As for I dont like your decay idea one bit, but if you are to go with it, but at least 50 repair charges on item so they are worth something.
And make existing item "legacy" by leaving them intact with no repair charges.
Also, keep self repair properties like it is now. That would help make them worth something by giving less worries.
But i still think you are bringing uo to is end... The average player (the one that never write or say anything here or on stratics, in other word, the Majority, is not ready to loose is stuff.. not by a long thread).
That is why the Tokuno event was/is so popular. People are addicted to items. Because you feeded us with them so much. Now you want to remove them from us. That make no sense.
And your "No comment" about bowcrafting is just great. You want to put item decay, make crafter craft better stuff, but yet, nothing for bowcrafters. So archers will see their bow decay with no possibility to get something as a replacement (unless hunting for hours to get a new bow, which of course need a bow to start with).
I dont.. we dont want to play a game that the only goal is to get item to rebuilt our armor. It is just pointless. stay home and your armor will remain... or stop loging in.
Danger Power: once again, you are my hero. I agree with you on every points. Good work :)
I propose to Mr Tact.
・I want you to make repair charge restorable.
In order to restore charge, it pays to 1 charge recovery 500,000 gp to the NPC blacksmith of a town.
・The item made from Runic enables it to choose a property.
・Customize the house of a castle and a fort is enabled.
(the customize code of a castle and fort is Sold by UO SHOPPES.Customize code of a castle 10$ etc.
)
・It enables to make the foundation of the house a free form.(L type etc.)
・I also want the north side,east side, and the west side of a house to make entrance stairs.
MrTact I wonder how people would embrace your decay idea if they thought about it in terms of max HP for an item. If as you propose Temp Powder is changed to no longer increase the max hit points of an item and we figure 60 durability to be an average number for items crafted and found in loot then with only 10 repairs that item really has essentially 600 hit points. Once that last hit point is gone it's dead. With your own bonus numbers we can increase that 600 hit points by 20% to 720. If it takes about 20 hours to reduce 60 hit points then we have 240 hours of gameplay in that piece of armor... and that's it ... that piece of equipment no matter how cool it was is gone....
Then let's look at artifacts... and here's where I think things start to really fall apart. You give legacy artifacts a + 20 repair. A total of 30 repairs at 255 hit points each and you have 9180 total life hit points (with 20% added for legendary repairs w/ temp powder) on a legacy artifact.
Non-legacy Artifacts have 20 repairs at 255 hit points each and come in at a whopping 6120 hit points (with 20% added for legendary repairs w/ temp powder)
Legendary Crafted & repaired Armor: 760 total life hit points - 240 hours of play and it's gone
Non-legacy Artifacts: 6120 total life hit points - 2040 hours of play and it's gone
Legacy Artifacts: 9180 total life hit points - 3060 hours of play and it's gone
How is this possibly going to help the crafter? It's going to make some artifacts 100x more desirable than they are currently even if they're much more plentiful. Granted when I look at these numbers I feel much more comfortable than I did this morning about owning a artifact suit I think if the goal of this is to help crafters then this should be taken back to the drawing board. I don't mean to sound overly cynical here, I absolutely love the work you and your peers do but I question the sanity of upping the spawn rate on items that have 2040 hour (1.8 year) lifespans. You can hardly give away Bone Crushers now... imagine what it would be like if more were actually dropping.
People love thier gear in UO. My favorite piece of equipment I own is a floppy hat with MR2, SR5, 14, 10, 17, 5, 5. Me and a buddy pulled it off a bone demon two months after the release of AOS. It's blessed and it's got 22 hit points. I've worn this hat almost continuosly since I got it. I cannot tell you how many times it has been crushed by the lamp puzzle rocks (which do nasty damage to armor btw). Is it unrealistic that that hat has survived with hardly a scratch since that day? Sure! But its unrealistic that I've been hit on the head by those rocks thousands of time and I'm still here. I love this hat. I love it to death. Under your plan it's got 264 max life hit points or 88 hours of gameplay. So for an average player that favorite piece of gear might last a month, for me it would be gone and useless in 2 weeks. That's sad. Let me tell you about another piece of equipment. It's one of my other favorites. I posted on tradeboards for months looking for a 20 LRC floppy hat. I finally found one on another shard and paid 3 million for a 20 LRC 6 LMC floppy with plain resists and planned to transfer it once the shard transfer service opened up. I insured it and tossed it on a new character on Sonoma. One day goofing around in doom on my newbie char I died a few times and didn't notice till serveral hours later that my whole suit had gone . (I didn't have auto renew enabled on this new character). So my uber cool floppy hat was lost long before I ever even got it to my home shard... The point of the story is that I like the floppy hat I've worn and enjoyed a hell of a lot more than the one that got lost. I'm sure I'll feel the same way if all of my armor is given a fixed death sentence of a few hundred hours.
While I've got your attention can I ask a silly question? Why can I sacrifice only once in a day and yet get 3 major artifacts if I'm super lucky at the gauntlet? (It's never happened to me but it has happened I assure you). I agree we need to look at how artifacts are distributed at the gauntlet but I think we have to look at it in two ways... The tokuno style system is a great start because it should in theory prevent the problem of the person who fights in doom for months and never gets an artifact... but what else did we see with the tokuno system? rampant farming. Once a system has a guranteed payout farming becomes a total assumption. While I think the points / eventual payout system is good I think it's incomplete w/o some downtime added to it. I hate the bod downtime because I think it stifles tailors. I don't think such a timer would stifle adventuring. Getting an artifact should not be a predictable event that you can calculate down to the rate per hour or day. The guaranteed payout system should be implemented to help the people who are getting left out of the current system but putting a cap on the number a person can get per day seriously discourages farming. The tokuno system has been pouring out minis for weeks and weeks now. Some people are farming 30-40 a day easily. Do we want to see the same dedication yeilding 2-3 doom artifacts a day? If you have guranteed payout and a ratelimit people will stay because they're having fun fighting not because they're waiting to collect more points toward their next carrot being waved in their face.
-Danger
One thing about the Tokuno style system in the Gauntlet, Danger, is that unlike Tokuno, you cant just go off into some unused corner and leave your Wyrm to whack on Orcs all day! :-)
The more people in the gauntlet, the MUCH less chance that you would get an artifact, based on the Tokuno system, since fame is divided out among all the players I believe (and not just by loot rights, but I could be wrong)
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