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Item Decay is the bullet that must be bitten.
adam_nox
Member UncommonPosts: 2,148
Do you want crafting to play an important role in an mmo?
Do you want to be able to give items to your friends?
Do you want your mmo to have a functioning economy?
If you answered yes to all three (or maybe just 2), then there is only one solution. Item Decay. Now just hold that rage inside for a moment. I know the thought of losing your epic purples from use might seem distasteful at first, but please consider a couple things.
1. In most modern mmo's crafting has lost most it's significance. Blizzard has in two different games introduced special items that you can craft, but if you don't care about them, then there's no point to crafting except something to do.
2. Similarly, we now have the concept of soulbinding, where we cannot freely trade or gift items around. Even if in practice it doesn't infuriate you, how do we tolerate something that makes so little sense? Oh yeah...
3. Economic inflation. As more and more gear floods the economy, currencies crumble and gear acquisition and ownership become pointless.
Unfortunately, the bandaid of soulbinding hasn't fixed the issue, while it creates it's own problems. Now let me sell you on Item Decay. First off, in at least WoW, you don't keep the same gear because blizzard releases new expansions that raise the cap and introduce new epic tiers, thus creating a gear treadmill that can lead only to OVER 9000 syndome. You become more powerful, enemies match you, doesn't it all get a little old?
Secondly, do you really want to wear the same gear month after month, year after year? With Item Decay, acquiring backup weapons and gear becomes interesting and necessary, and your game experience becomes more varied as you switch things up.
This can also alleviate a little bit of gear stingyness on the part of devs who want people to keep playing, and are afraid once they have the gear from a dungeon that it will no longer appeal to them.
For crafting, some kind of reverse engineering process can help crafters put together weapons and armor that mimics the power of that found in dungeons, and better yet, custom made with the stats and effects the player wants. A penalty to this might be a faster decay rate.
You could also modify soulbinding to attunement, where once a weapon has been used (or picked up in some cases) for the first time, it's attuned to that owner, and suffers half the normal decay rate (which would be somewhat fast). So tossing used items at friends won't be quite as good as finding it themselves.
If you don't want to forget about that time you had that great weapon with super rare stats, when it's become unusable, it could go up in some sort of trophy room.
Comments
It's not just items. Unlimited currency breaks economies too.
The game just has to make item loss fun, like Dayz it brings the excitement knowing when you die you lose everything if you don't loot your corpse in time, though the person who killed you probably already has. EverQuest gave a similar experience back in the day and it's what makes these games because it gets your heart pumping. EVE Online does the same thing and has proven to be popular, EverQuest was massively popular and Dayz has had over 1.6 million players.
The problem isn't with the system of losing items, it's easing players into it and how you shouldn't try to ease them in. EVE Online is a prime example of this, it tries to ease players into the harsh game world and as a result people generally stick to safe space and are too scared to go anywhere else. If the game just started with unsafe space everywhere, then people would overcome the fear straight away. Dayz again, it doesn#t ease you in, drops you in it and it makes it all the more fun. If the world was safe but certain areas, I bet many players would never dare go into them areas.
To some people PVP will never be fun, that is fine but that doesn't mean the game should be any easier. I remember in EQ2 having to group all the way through that game in beta and at launch and it was so hard and amazingly fun. Now it's all dumbed down into some solo game and it's boring as a result, there is no tension, just too easy and you're handed everything on a plate.
Not everyone feels fighting entropy is fun.
Not everyone finds a realistic economy fun. If they did, they'd be playing ebay instead an MMO.
----
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 make.
2. Soulbinding is there to prevent merchants from being overpowered. In the absense of such a feature, markets are too efficient and end up dominating the game, rendering actual loot unrewarding..
3. Even Eve, which has the harshest item deacy of all, still has a problem with inflation of the number of high-end ships. People learn to manage their risks to preserve the illusion of ever-increasing wealth and power.
There is a big problem with item loot.
When it comes to raiding, instead of huge monsters dropping epic swords and shields, they should drop crafting schematics and skills / abilities.
It's one of the MAJOR reasons why players are finding more tumbleweeds instead of other players in games like SWTOR, AoC, WAR, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.
These are MMOs. MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER. This recent trend of Single-Player games with optional co'op will always render the same result: exodus.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
Um ... you do realize you are talking to a solo player, right?
Have you thought this through?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Do your homework and reform that statement.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
The economy is near dead last on my priority fixit list.
But yeah, crafting does finish even lower.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
It depends on what kind of game you want. If your a casual who game hopes every 2-3 months then Degridation is something that doesnt matter and in fact would be annoying to you.
If you want a game that holds staying power that you can play over afew years, then yes i believe its best to have Item Decay and Degridation. Because when you play the same game over afew years you will hit the point where you are waiting for new content this will give you something to do. Specially if there is a limit on how meny times you can repair. It will also allow you to have a reason to make more than one of the same weapon so that on the AH people will need to keep buying.
This also depends on the game itself. For example in TSW that shit wouldnt fly. in order to get 10.4 gear you either need to exploit the game and get it in like a week (Some cabals do this annoyingly) while others like mine play the game properly and only get 10 of the currency per run. 10 runs in a day = 100 Currency, its takes about 190 to fully make a item and 200 for weapons. so 190 X 7 + 400 = 1710. Then factor in only full runs pay out that much, Frequency of being able to do the run and that in the beginning you can only have a hope in hell at doing 3 of the runs with the last one usually failing.
If these items were to Decay past the point of use, people would quit TSW.
Because i can.
I'm Hopeful For Every Game, Until the Fan Boys Attack My Games. Then the Knives Come Out.
Logic every gamers worst enemy.
?
What kind of comment is that?
Now now, that actually may not be entirely true.
Items weren't permanent, in general, up into the mid-90s. One that wasn't subject to some sort of wear and tear were really unusual.
Players could (presumably) get used to life without trophies again.
But god I do NOT want to be there to hear the QQQQQQQQQQQQQQ.
It's like proposing a lootless system--we know it can (did, in fact) work. But dayum, you talk about a bitchfest.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
To be honest, aside from possibly weapon/armorsmithing, Blizzard has done a really good job of making crafting feel important in WoW, without resorting to item decay, and the economy, at least on the server I was playing on, didn't seem so bad.
They made it so you get extra quests available for dailies so you can progress your reputations with certain factions quicker, crafts like enchanting, alchemy, cooking, etc., will have you making stuff that gives a distinct advantage and is extremely helpful to people you'd like to help out. Then of course, they add some fun things in there just for something to do.
I don't think it's item decay so much as developers need to get more creative with crafting. Personally, I think gear should be found, but other forms of crafting should exist to enhance your character in other ways.
Anyway, I'm not against item decay, but I can't say it's a favorable approach. It feels more... lazy than anything.
A Tale in the Desert doesn't have very much item decay, but crafting there is undeniably very, very important to the game. If you took crafting out of ATITD, there wouldn't be all that much left to the game.
This is exactly the reason, why I've never played any of those themeparks with shiny epics for longer then some 6 month, i.e. until I got my characters fully equipped eith the best gear.
EvE Online otoh I've played for 7 years on/off, as you allways needed to replace your equipment that was destroyed or lost.
Hopefully ArcheAge and/or REPOP will get it right and be my next long lasting MMORPG.
Totally agree with op. I have been saying the same myself as well.
The problem that WoW's popularity introduced is the idea of undying items. Without perm decay and decent crafting system, the system becomes stagnat and people at the top always have the best gear (because gear are obtain from loot and grind, and the best geared always gets the best gears fastest). Thus this forced every expansion to introduced new levels and dungeons, so they can drop new gears to obsolete the old gear; instead of meaningful contents like ownership of different types of things or politics system.
Perm decay allows for weapon levels and power to be ignored because nothing last forever, and people would want weaker backup gears when they are not using it for the best contents or most important pvp.
Plus as mentioned without perm decay, developers have to introduce artificial money sink that has nothing to do with the economy of the system. Perm decay IS the best money sink for in game economy because it is natural to the system and is self regulating through in game economy's supply and demand.
I'm not a big fan of item decay; and I also don't find crafting to be an integral part of a video game, either... more like a side quest... However, I could support the idea of item decay, so long as there were tiers of items that were immune to it. High quality or magical items shouldn't decay; and in the real world, they often don't. We still have rifles and swords from hunreds-thousands of years ago, respectively.
To put it in WoW terms, if I can even remember. I think white, green and non-quest reward blues could decay, but purple and orange should be indestructable.
Since you've played EVE Online already, I can honestly say that I don't think you've really thought this post through.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I really enjoy non combat oriented progression in MMOs and crafting has always been one of the major ways of doing that.
While I do not think item decay is absolutely necesarry to make a crafting system have depth and meaning, I do think it makes it much easier to design a system to do so. Much easier.
Not really sure what the problem is here. Eve does not have item decay on use of items (except ammo) but rather when it is destroyed you lose the ship and a percentage of the modules on it.
Items do decay in that they are removed from the world. Item decay does not have to be an on use thing.
Item decay refers to items becoming less operative or being removed from the world in some way. It could be based on a timer, based on use, based on a significant event (death), based on PVP, based on world events, or tied to any number of other things. (Not all of these are even good ideas to do)
But since crafting generally puts a large quantity of items into the world you need to have a way to take them out of the world to keep the ones coming in more meaningful. An alternative to item decay would be less loot drops or no direct loot drops (and crafting materials instead) which makes crafting more meaningful as a way of getting items into the economy (they would be the only source, in this case).
Currently in most MMOs all you need to do is solo combat to progress. I want some alternative ways to make an impact back in MMOs.
Most iron and steel items did not survive the years of history and had rusted away. Only very few well kept exceptions remains from period of more than 500 years.
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