Originally posted by daarco

Im not fond of the idea that my character "is" the gear it wears.  So naturally i like item decay.  An item is just a item. Nothing that should be bind on pickup or have a etanal lifespan.

You just nailed one of my biggest mutters with current MMO's.  The gear chase because gear > player skill.

For those that have raided, you don't need skilled raiders, you need bots that listen.  "move here", "hit there",  "stop hitting" , "start hitting", etc...  If the leader knows the script for an encounter, and his troops listen, you win *BASED* upon the gear you have and not the skills of the participants in the encounter.

Read the replies here -- gear = char.  Good gear = good char.  Great gear = Great char, etc...  Then followed with the traditional "earn the gear!" type junk. Simply put, the gear makes the games easier and many feel that making it as easy as possible is "winning".  Eliminate as many challenges in the game as you can...

Now when you read the crafters points and the other thoughts on economies in games, what are they about?  Buying and selling gear because your gear *DEFINES* how powerful your char is.  The crafted stuff isn't good enough.  The crafted stuff floods the market.  etc...  Thus gold buyers and all the rest of it comes into play because the "stuff" you get is more valuable than your skills at playing the char you chose.

A different model might work better than this continuous gear chase but both the developers and user community seem to be lacking in presenting such options and any degree of acceptance of alternatives.  The game developers don't seem to be able to find another model to present and the user community seems lacking in even being able to concieve of any model except the "tried and true" gear chase.

A game where gear isn't important would address many of the problems players find in games.  Your "casaul" vs "hardcore" arguments, your soloist vs raider arguments, etc...  If the gear you have doesn't grant you the ability to function better than anyone else in the game then it falls back to the player's actual abilities and many players find that idea atrocious -- "I've been playing 2 years and that guy, who's been playing a month, just stomped the critter that's been beating my brains out!!!" That doesn't float well for many "veteran" players.

I recall playing pinball and other "ancient" games where you started at the same point and advanced in the games based upon your skills at playing them.  MMO's have this trend where time = rewards and the rewards are trivializing most of the content -- not because someone is "better" (drag an alt through a "farm status" dungeon to gear 'em up... when Tweedles2 doesn't even know how to play that char...) but because the gear makes it possible, so buy the gear and you've got an "I win" scenario.

Many don't like the idea of "balance".  

They prefer imbalance where the more time they invest, the more powerful they are.  

Not the better they are, simply the more time they put into it and this is the model that developers provide for these games.

If you have item decay such that items can actually get destroyed then you cannot have the uber drop model and need a more crafting based model.

I am not a fan of the uber drop model myself.  But item decay is a secondary (and dependent) issue either way.

The dude with the Spartan avatar.

Actually EVE's pvp has a lot to do with skill, i had a very extensively trained PvP pilot but i barely knew how to PvP and if i ever pvp'd, i would have lost even though i was better outfitted and I had better skills.

Yes a battleship will not lose to a frigate under any circumstances, a battleship pilot who doesn't know what he's doing may lose to a couple of BC's or a HAC pilot. A carrier pilot can easily lose to just a few ships (albeit of the right composition).

Sp/fittings matter in EVE to a certain degree, but skills are extraordinarily important in EVE. I wouldn't minimize that.

Cryomatrix

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

One of the reasons every MMO has massive in game inflation is because of ignoring factors like this.

 

The truth is weapons wear out, so why don't they in the game world? That also allows money to leave the economy. I hate that MMOs are subject to huge inflation because of holes in the design. All mobs create loot that came from no where, which in turn creates money that came from no where. So when there aren't aspects of the game that suck this money back out, huge inflation occurs.

 

 

You don't want to make a game like the real world. Otherwise, travelling will be a pain. There will be lots of waiting at airports, and there is no fun. Real world is the least justification of a game design elements.

We throw fireballs in fantasy game. Where is the real world equivalent to that?

"Bind on Pick up, and Bind on Equip. That's the standard way to do it"

Works fine, and there is no valid  reason to change it.

Originally posted by Hammertime1

"Bind on Pick up, and Bind on Equip. That's the standard way to do it"

 

Works fine, and there is no valid  reason " In My Opinion "to change it.

Fixed your comment.   At least be accurate when making definitive statements.

This depends on the games model of content.

In WOW for example you couldn't get away with item decay, it just wouldn't work in a game like that.  Pre-Cu SWG was the perfect model for item decay.

For item decay to work, the majority of gear has to be crafter made. 

I don't think I've fully understood how this item decay works. Is it from time? Or when you die? All items you have? equipped items?

And in a game like wow where you have something like 19 item slots i think it would be a pain if all of them would decay. However if you have fewer items, I think it might be fun for me.

I used to play diablo 2 and there was no bop or boe for gear you obtain. Still, there was trading going on, and everyone wasn't running around in the best gear in the game. Can that be made possible in an mmo? Maybe make it harder to get the gear. Not gear from every single quest. Make it harder to get. Make disenchanting or something to destroy the items worth it, so players might turn it into resources instead of just handing everything over to lower level players. then it's still possible to help, but then you lose gold for it, which is fair. Also in wow there are some ways to get the gold out of the game. Epic mounts, repair, flight cost, consumables,  and maybe i've forgot some other ways to lose gold back to the game.

How about you make enchants fade over time? And the mats come from items.

Originally posted by Vizza

I don't think I've fully understood how this item decay works. Is it from time? Or when you die? All items you have? equipped items?

And in a game like wow where you have something like 19 item slots i think it would be a pain if all of them would decay. However if you have fewer items, I think it might be fun for me.

I used to play diablo 2 and there was no bop or boe for gear you obtain. Still, there was trading going on, and everyone wasn't running around in the best gear in the game. Can that be made possible in an mmo? Maybe make it harder to get the gear. Not gear from every single quest. Make it harder to get. Make disenchanting or something to destroy the items worth it, so players might turn it into resources instead of just handing everything over to lower level players. then it's still possible to help, but then you lose gold for it, which is fair. Also in wow there are some ways to get the gold out of the game. Epic mounts, repair, flight cost, consumables,  and maybe i've forgot some other ways to lose gold back to the game.

How about you make enchants fade over time? And the mats come from items.

Not sure about SWG but In DaoC  items used to decay with use not over time. YOu could carry around an item all week long and if you didn't use it, it would not decay.

There were varying levels of decay based on what the weapon conned to you. Yellow and Oj were right at your level and +1 your level,, red conned items were 2+ levels and purple con items were +3 or greater.   The greater the con, the faster the decay. This was Mythic's way of keeping you using items your level. Which you generally wanted to do because your profiency with a red or purple con item was poor affecting your to-hit and dps output.

It took a long time to decay with use for items, and it was not expensive to repair at all. Anyone griping about item decay has no clue about DaoC's system because it is 10000000 times more preferrable to Bind on Pickup and Bind on Equip.

Originally posted by Greenie

Originally posted by Hammertime1

"Bind on Pick up, and Bind on Equip. That's the standard way to do it"

 

Works fine, and there is no valid  reason " In My Opinion "to change it.

 

Fixed your comment.   At least be accurate when making definitive statements.

Nope, there has not been one valid reason pointed out in any post here, *you're* the one makng an opinion, not I.

Item decay is good in a game, but you should also be able to repair the items as well.   Also I hate bind on equip stuff you should be able to sell all your items to other people via Ah or Bazaar.  You spend time getting that uber item and then when its obsolete you sell it to a vendor for some stupid cheap price which is ridiculous .  So all that time you spend trying to find or get an item is now wasted.    Also the people that don't feel like searching and fighting mobs for that item to drop can just straight up pay for it, they are happy, you're happy.

Just like things in real life, there are things that most people consider obsolete that people still use, like a record player.  Most people have Ipods or CD players but there are a select few that still use record players because they like the warm sound of Analog compared to digital.   There are some things that are old like Tube amps from the 60's that people pay more for than lets say the same tube amp that is a remake and is brand new.

Originally posted by Vizza

I don't think I've fully understood how this item decay works. Is it from time? Or when you die? All items you have? equipped items?

In SWG it worked like this, my numbers could be a little off it has been a long long time since pre-cu.

You were able to clone yourself in SWG and when you died, your items would decay.  If you had yourself cloned it only took 1% of your gears durability if you did not have yourself cloned it was 10 - 20%, it was not cumbersome to clone so I only experienced this once or twice so can't remember this number exactly.  This only applied in pve your items would not decay from pvp deaths.

The durability on each piece of gear was a little different but to sum it up it was like 30k durability on a chestpiece and like 15k on bracers.

You would also take durability loss from damage taken, in both pve and pvp.  In general a set of amror would last you about 15 hours of non-stop nightsister hunting, and around 1-2 months for someone who pvp'd often, if you didn't pvp often could last you a year easily.

So basically, you have pve armor and pvp armor,  Good pve armor would run you for example like 200k credits while a good pvp set would run you 2 or 3 million credits.

You could also repair this armor but there was a chance it would not repair, but when repaired the durability would go down from say 30 to like 27k.

That was it in a nutshell.

Originally posted by Hammertime1

Originally posted by Greenie

Originally posted by Hammertime1

"Bind on Pick up, and Bind on Equip. That's the standard way to do it"

 

Works fine, and there is no valid  reason " In My Opinion "to change it.

 

Fixed your comment.   At least be accurate when making definitive statements.

 

Nope, there has not been one valid reason pointed out in any post here, *you're* the one makng an opinion, not I.

Bind on pick up..75% of the items you can't use. That is sooo much fun, thanks devs!! I could sell em on the AH and use the gold to buy some fun, but instead i get to sell em to vendors for a couple copper. There really is nothing more enjoyable huh? I guess i could give to an alt..oh wait. Selling to vendors for nothing is it. Thank god interacting with NPC's is the best thing ever!! Especially vendors!! It serves its purpose but its totally lame.

Two mechanics used to control behavior, and have negative entertainment value. both are immersion breaking. Friends are made through any interaction. limiting interaction limits the bind the community has with each other. They serve only the developers wants. And thats more important than anything.  I realize other means could be made available for that stuff. But freedom allows for the most enjoyment. Preventing gold farmers via game mechanics never actually helps a game. A strong community does.

Was a try at least lol.

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Originally posted by Hammertime1

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Originally posted by Greenie

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Originally posted by Hammertime1

"Bind on Pick up, and Bind on Equip. That's the standard way to do it" 
Works fine, and there is no valid  reason " In My Opinion "to change it.

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Fixed your comment.   At least be accurate when making definitive statements.

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Nope, there has not been one valid reason pointed out in any post here, *you're* the one makng an opinion, not I.

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So is it that there is no valid reason or no valid reason pointed out in any post here?  
Seems that from several posters in this thread they do not like bind on pickup of BOE.  - The customer dislikes a service or part of a service, that's a valid reason.
You are the one stating that no reason is valid, and maybe not for you, but for other people here there are valid reasons why BoP and BoE are bad and should be changed.
Instead of accepting that you have your opinion , I have mine, and other's have their's  yet you make a blanket statement to try to sound cute or intelligent.
<Mod edit>
 

as i see it, item decay and bind on pick up, are defenses against gold farmers and rmt for items, nothing more really.

i get the having to repair a weapon, thats just more or less realism i guess.

bind on pickup, well, thats just lame, and every game does it.  especially when its stuff you cant use and the npc resale price is worthless.  so now the only good equipment cant be traded, which was fun before the gold farmers came into every game, resulting in items that could only be purchased by using a gold farmer.

lighten up guys. We're all wrong anyway.

There are people who skip games that have these features.

There are NO people who play the game for these features. They merely accept them.

One makes it easier for devs.

One makes it easier for farmers.

I guess it comes down to which is for the greater good or hurts the game more.

Originally posted by crunchyblack

as i see it, item decay and bind on pick up, are defenses against gold farmers and rmt for items, nothing more really.

i get the having to repair a weapon, thats just more or less realism i guess.

bind on pickup, well, thats just lame, and every game does it.  especially when its stuff you cant use and the npc resale price is worthless.  so now the only good equipment cant be traded, which was fun before the gold farmers came into every game, resulting in items that could only be purchased by using a gold farmer.

I hate that companies design content around making a gold farmer's job. It doesn't stop gold farming it just makes the player base suffer. Worst part is mmo companies are partially responsible for this downward spiral when they instituted respawn timers on camps and instances which locked out players. This game gold/item farmer the opportunity to horde the encounters and drops in games.

Once again playercrafted gear is the solution to this problem. New ultra rare items will drop from mobs that are on timers and item farming crews will have less incentive to camp these epic monsters.  Companies will never stop gold farming and their just wasting resources designing clever ways like BoE and BoP to combat them. Player get screwed in the end anyways.

Originally posted by FikusOfAhazi

lighten up guys. We're all wrong anyway.

There are people who skip games that have these features.

There are NO people who play the game for these features. They merely accept them.

One makes it easier for devs.

One makes it easier for farmers.

I guess it comes down to which is for the greater good or hurts the game more.

I believe it comes down to what is best for the playerbase and keeps the customer happy since it's my $50 + 15/ month coming out of my wallet.

Originally posted by Greenie

Originally posted by crunchyblack

as i see it, item decay and bind on pick up, are defenses against gold farmers and rmt for items, nothing more really.

i get the having to repair a weapon, thats just more or less realism i guess.

bind on pickup, well, thats just lame, and every game does it.  especially when its stuff you cant use and the npc resale price is worthless.  so now the only good equipment cant be traded, which was fun before the gold farmers came into every game, resulting in items that could only be purchased by using a gold farmer.

 

I hate that companies design content around making a gold farmer's job. It doesn't stop gold farming it just makes the player base suffer. Worst part is mmo companies are partially responsible for this downward spiral when they instituted respawn timers on camps and instances which locked out players. This game gold/item farmer the opportunity to horde the encounters and drops in games.

Once again playercrafted gear is the solution to this problem. New ultra rare items will drop from mobs that are on timers and item farming crews will have less incentive to camp these epic monsters.  Companies will never stop gold farming and their just wasting resources designing clever ways like BoE and BoP to combat them. Player get screwed in the end anyways.

while gold farming is a detriment to the industry as a whole, i enjoy games so much that are not run by farmers, that ill deal with whatever they do to stop price inflation/global spam/ and fields of bots.

they may be in every game, but a lot of games they are useless and dont run the game.

Gold farming isn't the primary reason these devs keep shoveling BOE/BOP.

Using SWG as an example, a completely player-driven economy will eventually come to be dominated by the top-tier crafters, just as real world economies are dominated by capitalists with resources.  Inflation will be even higher than normal, and only people who have been playing a while (or who buy gold) will be able to afford top gear.

This discourages newbs and ultimately makes it harder for a game's population to grow and be competitive (or at least, this is the conventional dev wisdom).

Former SWG dev Dan Rubenfeld said as much on his blog after the NGE fallout, you can google for the exact quote.

I happen to disagree, and prefer the player driven system instead of the artificiality of BOE/BOP, but most people don't.  They don't want player crafters to dominate the market, they want a sort of online socialist utopia where everyone is basically equal, and so decay (and its equivalent player driven economy and crafting) is largely shunned.