Originally posted by XAPGames

Any mechanism that takes items out of circulation prevents excess items from clogging the economy.  I agree that item decay is one such mechanism.

 

However, I've never understood why sandboxers have such a strong dislike for items that soulbound on pickup or equip.  What makes item decay so great but BOE so terrible when they achieve the same thing?

 

intended as an honest question, not flame bait

Personally, if this is a problem, I'd be much happier if there were only so many items in circulation and never any more.  There are only 10,000 of this particular sword in all the world.  There will never be any more, there will never be any less.  If you're not one of the people with those swords, you can never get one unless you can kill a mob that has one, then you can take it as your own.  Of course, this means that we'd have to allow every single bit of gear that a mob carries to be picked up, unless damaged or destroyed during the fight, something that most games do not have.  Mobs do not continue to respawn with new armor so you can just pick up a thousand sets and corner the market, I'd say that if the armor was destroyed, the next time they respawn, they ought to have it again until it is taken from them.  As the population of the world grows, new and different types of armor or weapons could be introduced.

Originally posted by jtcgs

Crafting being worth something does not require item decay, it requires being able to craft more than just armor/weapons but also VANITY ITEMS and/or ITEM SKINS for new looks, and a large amount of consumables...

 I think the most self-perpetuating problem of not having item decay and dynamic resource/crafting quality is, developers have to keep introducing more levels to the classes and more powerful items to obsolete the older ones (so to give newer players a chance to catch up).

This has been one of the most common problem among themepark mmos. Just look at WoW - players are up to level what? 90 something now? and they got too many abilities that they don't even use, just because they want to balance the dungeon loots and item powers.

Perm decay is a good way (and a easier way) to prevent the "Dragonball syndrome" - ie. 20million dps ridiculousness once a game has a couple of expansions.

Originally posted by Yalexy

 

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Originally posted by Cephus404

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

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Originally posted by adam_nox Do you want crafting to play an important role in an mmo? Don't really care. Do you want to be able to give items to your friends? I can already do that. Do you want your mmo to have a functioning economy? Define "functioning". I don't see anything wrong MMO economy today.

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That's pretty much how I feel too.  For the second, I'd much rather help a friend go out and find an item of their own rather than relying on me to give them my cast-offs.  That's a problem I see in lots of these games, where people will create a secondary character, then pile a lot of crap from their first character so the second doesn't actually have to do any work.  I'd much rather see all characters, even alts, have to earn their way in the world.

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With items decaying over time and even more so on use, you can't hoard items and then give them to your alts whenever you seem fit, as they'll vanish at some point no matter what.

You can try to save them items for longer, but this will require repairs.

That's why I'd rather ban being able to give anything to any  character.  It will stop the gold farmers in their tracks if you can *NEVER* give any other character any gold at all, it will stop weapons being sold on ebay or whatever, etc.  If you find it, you can dump it in an NPC shop for cash, but otherwise, hoarde all you want, you're stuck with it forever anyhow.

absolutely not, you'd spend all of your waking hours keeping up with spoiled food ingredients and broken pieces of armor that you should reform to a new purple. There is such a thing as overdoing it because after all these games do no take into account the reasons why we now have freezers IRL and why worlds like Star Trek have replicators. There are some things that one doesn't need to do in order to enjoy a game. If you want to be such a rules lawyer go play the dice version of rpg's and be the gm or find one that believes as you do that epic items break and disappear, Leave that out of my games period. It's bad enough that Legend of Grimrock had a limited amount of food and enemies that dropped food but had a food meter.

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Originally posted by Cephus404

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Originally posted by Yalexy  

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Originally posted by Cephus404

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

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Originally posted by adam_nox Do you want crafting to play an important role in an mmo? Don't really care. Do you want to be able to give items to your friends? I can already do that. Do you want your mmo to have a functioning economy? Define "functioning". I don't see anything wrong MMO economy today.

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That's pretty much how I feel too.  For the second, I'd much rather help a friend go out and find an item of their own rather than relying on me to give them my cast-offs.  That's a problem I see in lots of these games, where people will create a secondary character, then pile a lot of crap from their first character so the second doesn't actually have to do any work.  I'd much rather see all characters, even alts, have to earn their way in the world.

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  With items decaying over time and even more so on use, you can't hoard items and then give them to your alts whenever you seem fit, as they'll vanish at some point no matter what. You can try to save them items for longer, but this will require repairs.

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That's why I'd rather ban being able to give anything to any  character.  It will stop the gold farmers in their tracks if you can *NEVER* give any other character any gold at all, it will stop weapons being sold on ebay or whatever, etc.  If you find it, you can dump it in an NPC shop for cash, but otherwise, hoarde all you want, you're stuck with it forever anyhow.

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Congratulations. You've just made the game into a singleplayer RPG.

Originally posted by Yalexy

 

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Originally posted by Cephus404

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Originally posted by Yalexy  

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Originally posted by Cephus404

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Originally posted by nariusseldon

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Originally posted by adam_nox Do you want crafting to play an important role in an mmo? Don't really care. Do you want to be able to give items to your friends? I can already do that. Do you want your mmo to have a functioning economy? Define "functioning". I don't see anything wrong MMO economy today.

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That's pretty much how I feel too.  For the second, I'd much rather help a friend go out and find an item of their own rather than relying on me to give them my cast-offs.  That's a problem I see in lots of these games, where people will create a secondary character, then pile a lot of crap from their first character so the second doesn't actually have to do any work.  I'd much rather see all characters, even alts, have to earn their way in the world.

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  With items decaying over time and even more so on use, you can't hoard items and then give them to your alts whenever you seem fit, as they'll vanish at some point no matter what. You can try to save them items for longer, but this will require repairs.

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That's why I'd rather ban being able to give anything to any  character.  It will stop the gold farmers in their tracks if you can *NEVER* give any other character any gold at all, it will stop weapons being sold on ebay or whatever, etc.  If you find it, you can dump it in an NPC shop for cash, but otherwise, hoarde all you want, you're stuck with it forever anyhow.

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Congratulations. You've just made the game into a singleplayer RPG.

By solving the biggest problems that MMOs face.  I'll take it.

Item decay solves nothing.

With item decay you constantly farm to remake equipment before it eventually is destroyed.

Without item decay you constantly farm to make new different equipment entirely.

The only difference is without item decay, at the very least the equipment you farmed hard for will always be there. In the end, they both lead to the same issue. The economy is a lot larger than this one problem, and frankly you're all looking at the problem from the incorrect perspective in the first place. Crafters will always be left on the outside as long as there are things like raid gear or equipment dropped from monsters that are better or equal to what can be crafted. I know you guys think crafting is some great thing, but the reality is that you are all in the minority. Crafting is not a big thing to players by and large, what is important is getting stronger, and if you give players an easier way to get stronger than crafting, they are going to take it. Period.

Post above is correct, item decay and item loss are two very different things. I fully support item decay, AS LONG AS it doesnt result in item loss. Losing durability on death for example is one of the best systems in MMOs. When you die, item is damaged, and with enough death items break and are no longer usable, until they are repaired. They should not be perma broke and unusable. 

Unfortunately from the OP and other comments after, others seem to support item loss. This is an absolutely terrible idea, and this is my opinion of why. The only thing it accomplishes is another artificial gear treadmill. This treadmill is even worse than the normal, because at least then you are gaining power as you aquire better items. How can any of you support having to grind over and over for the EXACT SAME item because it decayed with use and was lost? You honestly want to have to get the same item over and over and over? Talk about not making any sense. 

On that point, Soulbind and Account Bind are brilliant. They create a demand in the economy without penalizing the individual player. If i craft, or earn an item, I should be able to use that item until my character outgrows it. The old MMO economy was healthy because a player could just resell the item they outgrew to the newer players, which is a healthy economy for everyone but crafters. For crafting, you want new players to buy the items from the crafters, not from higher level people who have outleveled them. Thats where Soulbind comes in. 

A healthy crafting economy relies on the crafted items being in demand, but it doesnt require the same player to repeatedly purchase the same item. New characters, either in the form of new players or even old players with alts, is usually more than enough demand. Top that off with other consumables, and you have a working economy without item loss (other than the consumable). You dont have to make the armor or weapon the consumable. Each crafting class can have its own. Cooks have food/drink, Alchemists have potions, Weaponsmiths can have sharpening stones and Armorsmiths can have oils. Give every profession a form of temperary buff, alongside permanent items and theres still demand.

The very last thing I want to do in my MMO is constantly run the same dungeon 50 times to get the item drop i want (which can be crafting materials, doesnt have to be finished product loot). Then after grinding that out, I have to do it again, EVERY MONTH, because I will have to replace the same item every time it breaks. How can anyone see that as a good thing?

Originally posted by maplestone

But in response to specific issues:

1. I'm not convinced that crafting was ever quite as significant as people remember it.   There's a certain "I found found fun once and I'm having trouble finding it again" aura to the comments people 

Well, now I know you never played Star Wars Galaxies. And with you not having played SWG, I can completely understand your skepticism towards the crafting "dream", because nothing else has captured it in the same way as SWG did.

In SWG, I built every single part of my starship one by one. And I knew those parts inside out, and even tailored the turrets on the top and bottom deck to suit the firing preferences of my gunner players who rode along in the ship. They were built from a collection of metals, ores, and other resources that I had collected over the years, where each one had dynamic stats and a unique name. I loved that ship and I was responsible for every piece of it. And that was just one crafting profession of many.

Crafting had enough of an impact in SWG that you could subscribe to a monthly fee for years and only focus on crafting. And yes, that hasn't happened again since, so you'll definitely get the impression that old SWG vets "found fun once" and are having trouble finding it again.

-- End of another SWG fan's rant #14715

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

Item decay solves nothing.

With item decay you constantly farm to remake equipment before it eventually is destroyed.

Without item decay you constantly farm to make new different equipment entirely.

 With perm decay and a dynamic resource crafting system it wouldn't be your job to farm resources and to grind crafting actually - it will be the job of the people who are delicated to the task to do so. You just have to pay them, ie. Opportunity cost and division of labour just like economy in the real world.

That is the point I think is what some of the naysayers of perm decay are missing. You don't sustain yourself in a perm decay economy. You are part of the society.

The problem with today's mmo is too many people are the producers of the their own equipment. When that happens, most people just go out and do that, and no one buys anything except for raw materials. Hence there is no real economy, and the game has to introduce artificial money sink such as certification for vehicles that cost a lot of in game cash and mail fees which makes absolutely no sense at all.

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

Item decay solves nothing.

With item decay you constantly farm to remake equipment before it eventually is destroyed.

Without item decay you constantly farm to make new different equipment entirely.

 

The only difference is without item decay, at the very least the equipment you farmed hard for will always be there. In the end, they both lead to the same issue. The economy is a lot larger than this one problem, and frankly you're all looking at the problem from the incorrect perspective in the first place. Crafters will always be left on the outside as long as there are things like raid gear or equipment dropped from monsters that are better or equal to what can be crafted. I know you guys think crafting is some great thing, but the reality is that you are all in the minority. Crafting is not a big thing to players by and large, what is important is getting stronger, and if you give players an easier way to get stronger than crafting, they are going to take it. Period.

I agree. I would love to seem top tier raids drop crafting materials with extra mods which means the best gear must involve raids and players involved in crafting.

I don't think crafting should be that easy though.

Originally posted by hraeth
Honestly I think you could get around the need for items to degrade by simply slowing the leveling curve. 

 I think the entire current concept of levels and classes in most thermepark mmo is a disease. Problem with levels is there will always be max, and max levels will always get bored and have nothing to do. Slowing down only delays that inevitably.

I think games that implement skills system is a much better solution. Give you points, you can choose what skill/skill paths to take, but the only limitation is how many skill points you have. Thus if people got bored with 1 skill tree/profession they can always switch that skill out and put points into another.

Originally posted by Yalexy

I would actually prefer a mix. Decay over time for all and random destruction of a few items upon death. This guarantees a never sleeping economy, with constant demand for new materials and items.

Another system of removal is consumption. For example, in ATITD, you don't really have gear, so the items that enter the system are almost all materials to create higher tiers of items. UO, AC and EVE cycle gear into the consumption system through the ability to smelt, salvage or refine existing goods down into a portion of the material that was used to create it. Removal of weapons and gear from the system becomes an incentivized form of gameplay because it returns materials that can then be consumed by the crafters to make other items. Reduction of materials occurs through each step of the process.

Originally posted by hraeth
Honestly I think you could get around the need for items to degrade by simply slowing the leveling curve.  Item degredation only really becomes important to the economy once everyone is at max level and has the gear that they want.  Once you hit that point the game begins to go stale (at least for me).  While very slow item degradation might be part of the solution I don't believe that it is the one bullet that will slay this beast.  If a game developer wants their game to last beyone the initial three months of "ooh shiney..." then they'll need to slow content consumption and make ealier content feel just as epic and worth enjoying as "end game" content.

Another way to keep items cycling in and out without the need for items to degrade is to use dynamic loot systems. In UO and AC, players craft, tinker and augment their gear to fit their playstyle. The optimal sword for one of their swordsmen will usually differ from what's optimal for their other one. While many characters in both those games will have a particular weapon or piece of armor they will keep for a long period of time, they regularly cycle through countless other alternate and secondary weapons; removing old weapons from the system through a combination of decay, breakage, loss and refining.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

UO, AC and EVE cycle gear into the consumption system through the ability to smelt, salvage or refine existing goods down into a portion of the material that was used to create it.

 I agree salvage is another good system.

Originally posted by waynejr2

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by adam_nox

Do you want crafting to play an important role in an mmo?

Don't really care.

Do you want to be able to give items to your friends?

I can already do that.

Do you want your mmo to have a functioning economy?

Define "functioning". I don't see anything wrong MMO economy today.

 

 Economies function.   I suspect he thinks functioning means he has an idea of a correct economy rather than a wrong economy. 

Does item decay help the regular player?  we know it's great for the crafters.

THere is no "correct" economy. No even economist can agree on that. If the game is fun, and clever people can make out in the market, do we care if there is gold inflation (btw, which is "realistic")? or price changes over time (it is not like prices are stable in the real world)?

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by waynejr2

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by adam_nox

Do you want crafting to play an important role in an mmo?

Don't really care.

Do you want to be able to give items to your friends?

I can already do that.

Do you want your mmo to have a functioning economy?

Define "functioning". I don't see anything wrong MMO economy today.

 

 Economies function.   I suspect he thinks functioning means he has an idea of a correct economy rather than a wrong economy. 

Does item decay help the regular player?  we know it's great for the crafters.

THere is no "correct" economy. No even economist can agree on that. If the game is fun, and clever people can make out in the market, do we care if there is gold inflation (btw, which is "realistic")? or price changes over time (it is not like prices are stable in the real world)?

 I agree.  For the most part, I think game economies have been good enough. 

The interesting question to me is should devs design in problems to be solved or just let players do what they will.  For example:

instead of an world reaching auction house with EMAIL item delivery, what about local markets? 

What if certain plants only grown in certain areas.  You won't find them in a distant market unless someone brought them from the remote location to the local market.  That could create fun for some players.

There is a thread on item decay.  Well, what about spoilage for food?  How about farming?  Grow grapes to make wine.  As it ages it can get better in quality.

What would be the best thing for the game?