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Armor and Item Decay: pros and cons.
ruiner12
Member Posts: 40
As I have seen through various games there have been many types of decay on items, if any at all. Most games exclude this because it will sometimes make them lose players who buy very rare items that break and are incredibly expensive to repair; if they can be repaired at all.
Decay in my opinion is a must. It stimulates economy and forces players to appreciate what they have. If they have a very good item that is a rare drop or very hard to make, then they are gunna keep it shiny and polished. Players who let their items break and if the game doesn't allow those items to be repaired, then they have to buy new ones. This creates a large demand for these items.
A game where this WAS prevalent was Pre-CU SWG. Items constantly decayed if you died, and you had to repair them otherwise they would lose stats and abilities. Sadly each time you repaired, your item lost some of its quality, so it could only be reapired a certain number of times before its health became 1/1 and it broke almost instantly. I actually preferred this style of gaming because I truly took care of the items and I had and made sure not to die. They obviouslly did away with this in NGE because they lost the little kiddies who didn't understand the concept of it, and down plummeted the economy for weapons and armor crafters.
So do games that have no decay have weak and overpriced economies? Would it be better for the game industry to stick some form of permanent decay caused by deaths or usage that made items useless over a period of time to keep people working and make crafting always useful?
Comments
With nothing in place you get items that become worthless, because they flood the market.
So, to get rid of items what do you do?
You get either repair costs, breakage, or you get Bind on Pick Up or Bind on Usage.
I like repair costs and breakage better than Bind on Pick up.
So do I. From a believability standpoint, as well as creating a market for crafted items. I also think the higher the item's power - the easier it should break.
The system the OP mentioned from SWG sounds right to me. A repaired item eventually becomes useless - creating a demand for another one.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I want my crafters very important in a game. The one thing I can't stand about most games is how marginalized crafters are. Nearly all of them, crafting is an after thought or done poorly. IMHO, SWG had the best crafting of any game, ever. Vanguard is a close 2nd.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
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"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
Nah ..
So some old items becoming worthless. So what? As long as there are new items introduced into the economy it is fine. Just look at WOW. When a new tier of crafting items were released, the old tier becomes cheap. That does not kill the auction house because the new items (or the associated materials) are being actively traded.
Yup. Crafting is a favorite aspect of RPGs for me.
I was surprised to hear that Fallen Earth has systems in place that reduce the value of crafting - in a game that is supposed to be crafting-heavy.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Like almost every feature, if handled properly there are no cons.
I think it encourages people to be careful and consider their risks... It can encourage crafting... I'd like to see a player skill for repairs as well..
I think getting rid of soul-bound items, and instead adding decay to items would be great.
FFXIV is going to have item decay.
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It's actually wrong to compare Bind on pickup to Decay. One limits the reusability for alts and limits the trading market and is a way of removing money/value from the economy, while the other feeds the need to reacquire the same item and constantly feeds the economy.
In Anarchy Online, e.g. very few items are bound and thus the same item looted 4 years ago still is traded and the money just moves between accounts.
In EVE Online, lots of items break and you spend alot of time getting the same gear back.
If the items stay, people leave an instance or similar once they have the loot they can get and never look back. What if you lost that Rifle/Axe?
Not losing items means that the main way to get players to play new material is to improve the drop, causing mudflation and scaling issues.
One way to combine them and avoid the mudflation will not fare well with the players, i assume, it'd be to nerf old gear to have new one be as good as the previous best ...
/Y
A lot of modern MMOs bypass item decay simply by making items redundant through gear progression.
It would be nice to see some MMOs trying for something a bit more ambitious than a gear progression based end-game and Item Decay would be an essential part of that.
I actually don't believe it is at all wrong to compare Binding items and decay. Both of them are important features in games, and I dont think both are needed at the same time. A game that neglects either one of these features, well they are moronic. The economy of that game will crash and burn in a fiery pit.
I don't like item decay. It may solve the issue of items overcrowding and provide more reason to buy items but I don't think it does it in a very fun way.
From a buyers perspective, items breaking is just annoying and the faster they break the less I care about what items I have and just slap something on with decent stats.
As a crafter I am just pumping out items I couldn't care less about to get money and level.
I would like to see other ways of getting items out of the game other than making them break.
Like in Champions, you can research to level your crafting skill, which destroys the item in the process and also keeps people from making tons of crap onbody wants just to level up their skill.
And/or something like NPC merchants and collectors that you can trade items to for money or reputation or something, removing the items from the game. Or maybe you have to make things for NPC troops, removing the items from the game too.
I would rather see something like that rather than just my items break and someone has to make me new ones.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
I like item decay in games that have crafting that matters... or maybe the item decay MAKES crafting matter... what came first the chicken or the egg?
Anyway I hate bringing this up again because it looks like it's been discussed to death on these forums but it comes down to game style... in a class/levelled themepark game, where each new content 'upps' the level cap, item decay doesn't help as much for crafting since people are frequently looking for the new flavour of the month anyway. Sandbox games or classless/non-levelling based games are where this system really shines. I could go into detail about my ideal crafting game but I don't think it matters.... item decay would be there though.
I think people are objecting because the raiding mindset is so prevalent now. People see item decay as them eventually losing that uber +0.5% upgrade stuff they got from grinding a raid 5 times in a row and REALLY don't want to do it all over again... Option there is simple... remove the stupid raid grind... but then that's not a themepark game so i've exposed by bias towards sandbox.
A very good example of the mindset and system of non breaking system. People dont like to pay taxes either, but most do.
From a player perspective your "slapping on" is actually a good thing, as it lessens the problem with elitism and "you must have the best gear to be pro", it's hard and expensive to keep equipment in that shape. Therefore it's ok to "just" use good gear.
The Champions example is a clever way of removing items without flooding the market, i like that one.
Selling stuff to merchants is the opposite of what i'm getting at, it adds cash to the economy, while repairing only drains it. Draining cash from the economy of a game is important to lower inflation. Yes, economic theory is quite appropriate to games also, since it is a economic market with lots of persons.
The point is that decay removes items "from the top", while handing in to npc's removes them "from the bottom". I mean, who'll ever downgrade their active weapon of choice for some npc faction? Decay and losing items on death (which is harsher and more extreme) forces you to get the same gear again (status quo) instead of only upgrading (inflation).
Ofcourse, depending on the rate of decay or lost items the acquisition time must be changed also, raiding for 3 months for 1 weapon sucks in that setting, unless there's a almost as good alot easier availible.
A very good example of the mindset and system of non breaking system. People dont like to pay taxes either, but most do.
From a player perspective your "slapping on" is actually a good thing, as it lessens the problem with elitism and "you must have the best gear to be pro", it's hard and expensive to keep equipment in that shape. Therefore it's ok to "just" use good gear.
The Champions example is a clever way of removing items without flooding the market, i like that one.
Selling stuff to merchants is the opposite of what i'm getting at, it adds cash to the economy, while repairing only drains it. Draining cash from the economy of a game is important to lower inflation. Yes, economic theory is quite appropriate to games also, since it is a economic market with lots of persons.
The point is that decay removes items "from the top", while handing in to npc's removes them "from the bottom". I mean, who'll ever downgrade their active weapon of choice for some npc faction? Decay and losing items on death (which is harsher and more extreme) forces you to get the same gear again (status quo) instead of only upgrading (inflation).
Ofcourse, depending on the rate of decay or lost items the acquisition time must be changed also, raiding for 3 months for 1 weapon sucks in that setting, unless there's a almost as good alot easier availible.
I think you hit the nail on the head in the last sentence. It took me 3 months to get my first raid item in AoC, and if that broke or got degraded I probably would not see the need for me to go raiding anymore. I avioded some dungeons in LotRO due to the fact that I had already gotten the reward and the repair bill would be substantial. It therefore detracted me from playing, and I ended up quitting that game (though this specific detail was not my major reason). Nothing hurts the economy more than players quitting.
Repair bills and item replacement are essentially only money sinks. I think other ways of getting gold out of the economy is better than destroying hard earned rewards, such as having something the player will need (real life example: food) or something the player wants (real life example: tropical vacation).
Yup. Crafting is a favorite aspect of RPGs for me.
I was surprised to hear that Fallen Earth has systems in place that reduce the value of crafting - in a game that is supposed to be crafting-heavy.
I'm in the same boat
Ryzom also had a tremendous crafting system and economy, due to item decay
I actually won't resub to Fallen Earth due to lack of item decay. This game is quite good but the economy is about to make crafting a useless grind, except for food and ammos.
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On second thought, I wouldn't mind decay iff my appearence was not connected to my gear, it is not like RPGs do a good job of letting me look the way I want to anyway, I usually look like a moron with mismatched armor but gear decay makes this even worse.
If I could look the way I wanted and all items were non visual then I wouldn't find decay so irratating.
Again like Champions but with item decay that would be ok I think.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit