Item Degen

Pressus · Warrior Joined: 06 May 2007 Posts: 159

This issue was seemingly taken care of, Arion. Ctown Blacksmiths now have a "lower chance" to blow up items.

arion · Dedicated Hunter Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 318

so i see...
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Gratin · Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 1:45 pm Post subject:

ROFL Pressus! Rolling Eyes

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andur · Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 2:18 pm Post subject:

Gratin · Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 11:14 am Post subject:

I hope its not a final solution and its just something to appease the masses until a solid solution is implemented.
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Rinn · Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 11:48 am Post subject:

Please see news in game, for what I think is a viable solution to this problem.

Thanks,
Rinn

azash · Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 1:21 am Post subject:

its not enough
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Ormietck · Warrior Joined: 28 Jul 2006 Posts: 112 Location: CA

Yinka · Dedicated Joined: 10 Dec 2005 Posts: 212

being able to buy days for your items is a nice new option, but yeah it doesnt really solve the problem everyone seems to have about item degen. Like Ormietck said, it's not going to help those who don't have that much time to play each day. And even for those who play a good amount of time every day, except for the few players who can cipher several sets a day, it's probably still a better option to just spend your time tweaking.

I thought about the idea of making item degen take effect only when your character is logged. That would certainly help those who can't play much every day, or have to take extended breaks for RL purposes. The problem with this idea is then you can store spare tweaks on inactive alts.

So yeah I have no compromising solutions this time around Sad

Krach · Fighter Joined: 11 Feb 2008 Posts: 97

Torasu · Fighter Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 27

It was a nice thought Rinn, but sadly, it just ends up helping the "power gamers" among us and not the casual player. Currently, the only remedy for the casual player is to make a monk and forgo any tweaks and get all the tats. So, I'm forced to have an inferior kit in order to have ANY kit whatsoever when I log on. I wish there was a better way to handle this.

-Torasu

andur · Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 3:56 pm Post subject:

The players who play every day are going to end up with a better kit no matter what than the players who play every now and then, that part is inevitable.

I do agree that the questpoint solution only helps those with time to quest/cipher/whatever to get those questpoints (which also generally requires a decent kit to be able to survive said quests or kill the mobs with a decent cipher chance).

As I see it, the solutions for the casual player are:
-Removing item degen entirely. Massively swings the balance towards the hardcore players who will then have totally optimal tweaked out kits, though it would be possible to slowly attain such through casual play.

-Not degenerating items on days that you don't log in. Items will then degenerate at the normal rate for players who play every day, and much slower if you only play every few days. Makes hording items on storage alts trivial (though its the same problem that we currently have actually).

-Removing the item max entirely. Makes rekitting relatively painless, as the items will always be out there. Devalues the mud economy, and lets people have astronomical numbers of wands/wonderous if they want. Would also require removing tweaks from being tied to items being maxxed out (which reduces the need for hording).

-Make tweaks independent of the item max. If there was say a set % chance for an item to tweak, then there would be no need to horde a ton of normal copies of the item for the sake of maxxing it out to get a tweak. Gives everyone an equal chance to get a tweak. Also would make a much wider selection of items available for tweaking, while it is currently possible to tweak non-maxxed out items, its not that great of a chance. Rare items still remain rare, but, there's lots of potential to tweak a more common item to something better. Makes replacing an age degenned tweak less painful.
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Torasu · Fighter Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 27

Yinka · Dedicated Joined: 10 Dec 2005 Posts: 212

Ormietck · Warrior Joined: 28 Jul 2006 Posts: 112 Location: CA

Maxxing items to allow tweaks was initially instituted to promote donating equipment. Prior to this, people would junk rather than donate to keep items unmaxxed and increase the probability of obtaining tweaks.

The issue of balance between players will always exist, as Andur points out, based on skill and time invested. The only way to avoid equipment imbalance is to grant easy access to all equipment with no tweaks/rare items and no item degen. In other words, everyone running around with identical kits (boring!).

The aspect of the game that is really affected by removing item degen is the pve arena. Strong kits can be acquired over time, which means even casual players can eventually gain great kits. As kits become more powerful, more tweaks will be distributed around the MUD increasing everyone's kit potential.

So the question becomes, how drastic will the pve arena really become if we assume everyone has a max-tweak kit? What, if any, is the negative to this situation? Does this promote game-play or discourage it?

After all, changes that are made to the game should be designed to encourage people to play our game; and games are meant to be fun.

Revak · Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 9:00 am Post subject:

Personally i think degen should be taken out completly, i just logged back on a few days ago from a long stint away and ofcoarse everything died. Very disheartening and not fun considering the time i put into my kit.

Gratin · Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 2:59 pm Post subject:

I suggested removing item max several replies ago...
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"Having sex with Aza's VCR since 2007."

andur · Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 6:59 pm Post subject:

Krach · Fighter Joined: 11 Feb 2008 Posts: 97

Just an idea...

How about removing item degen from the game, and:

1. Once an item gets to 0 days, you can't use it. you'll have to keep it fixed in order to use it. The cost is 10k gold per day. This way, fixing an item all the way 60 days will cost you 600k gold. That's not cheap for most of the players.

2. Once you wear an item, it becomes PERSONAL. This way, you can't transfer items and tweaks between chars, or just lend stuff to your friends. It also can boost up the economy because if it's a rare item, you would like to have it - once the other guy is wearing it, it's !you.

3. Remove item max from all items. Each item has its own percentage to pop and that's it. Item max is annoying as hell.

Lukial · Soldier Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 7

Hm, some of the ideas sound nice, but it would kinda kill the Lordfix for Qps.

If any of these were to go in, even if not, they would need to change personal objects so lords can give as well as recieve them.

Only problem with that is that it would either have to fix maxes or change the method by which items tweak, for eventually you would end up with players with crazy eq and newbies who have no ability to get the upper hand.