Equipment Hoarding

[Zingil]

The debate about having a limit or not on the number of any given artifact is not about having more or less magical items available in the game at any given time, its about there always being a _chance_ of finding a magical artifact as opposed to there being zero chance of finding the item at certain times.

With a set percentage chance of a monster spawning with a magical artifact more avid and effective equipment hunters would still find a lot more good equipment but the more casual player would always at least have a _chance_ of finding something as well. The action of the avid equipment hunter would not negatively impact the chance of a casual player finding something.

The introduction of limits and the chance of limited items spawning and glowing increasing as Armageddon draws closer has had the unintended consequence of active and resourceful players being able to effectively control when certain items spawn and thus monopolize them. I totally agree that players who spend a lot of time searching for equipment should be rewarded by finding more equipment while those who spend less time hunting for equipment should find less but I disagree that active players should be able to totally monopolize the finding of certain items at the expensive of less active players or players who simply arent in the clique of friends with access to the information and time necessary to make sure they always have all clones of a certain artifact. And lets not forget that some of these items are actually required to solve certain quests.

With a set percentage chance of a monster spawning with a magical item the rewards an equipment hunter receives will be directly proportional to the time invested. I would personally be wary of altering the percentage chance of an item spawning during an Armageddon cycle as this could have the consequence of having an uneven distribution of items appearing during the cycle and many of us remember what a hassle that was several years ago when for the first 3-4 days after an Armageddon it was impossible to find any of the limited items. But of course the set percentage chance can be changed at Armageddon in case too many or too few items, as decided by the Immortals, seem to be cloned. But whether six awesome serrated crimson battle pikes are found in one Armageddon cycle and ten in the next shouldnt really matter.

Removing the limits and introducing a set percentage chance should, hopefully make it more fun to hunt for equipment for everyone as it would mean that there would always be a _chance_ of finding something. The rather negatively charged term 'equipment hoarder' could also quickly be replaced by the more positive 'equipment hunter' as the player would still have lots of good equipment but would not ruin the chance of other players finding things to.

-Zingil's player

P.S. Arcon, before the stat changes I suspect characters like Bebop and Thunder were even bigger than many myths are today and todays Ashburz would eat old Bolg for breakfast! Though I will gladly concede that there has been a significant inflation in skills, abilities and special attacks over the years but thats a different discussion.

P.P.S I agree with Ilrahil that sorting out the rebalancing of the guilds is significantly more important than the above issue but that does not mean it is not an important one.

[Mersereau]

Limiting of equipment was one of the biggest reasons I left the game.

[Archie]

I have an idea that would be very beneficial for all I think.

Anyone can kill any monster and loot their equipment. The equipment that is today capped (coould be a long list, I don't know) can be stored in a common, note game common, rack.

This rack should exist in each guild (maybe only occupational to promote joining those) and the rack itself then makes sure that a weapon donated by a guild is connected to that guild. When borrowed and used by another guild's members, the weapon/rack would give a certain amount of combat XP to that guild. Guildmembers can then periodically retreive this combat XP.

So in effect, a Knight kills Arlenn to get the abbasi. Not using the abbasi the Knight puts it in the rack. A swordsman from the Mercenaries borrows it. This mercenary player will gain lots of combat xp by having a good weapon. The Knight's guild's combat XP account will benefit from the mercenary player being out fighting and then all Knight guild members can withdraw their amount from the account.

Share away the equipment.

Archie

[gorboth]

A very creative idea, Archie.

The Admin are currently discussing doing the following things to change some realities which will bear on this issue:

• Removing the "unbreakable" property from the game, so all weapons can, in fact, eventually be broken.
• Implementing a system by which all items will corrode or break within 3-5 days of (continued) use.
• Removing the item limit on all items in the game.
• Replacing the item limit with a very low chance that a given item will appear with each respawn. This will make them very rare always, irrespective of how close we are to the next Armageddon. It will also make them always available, if you are lucky.
• Removing the "glowing" concept and simply having all non-autoloading items save, always.
• Changing the duration between Armageddon to 30 days.

These changes haven't been approved yet, but I thought I'd throw them out there for people to chew on. This would be a pretty different setup with new pros/cons.

Discuss!

G.

[Laurel]

ogre hammers included?
different dulling pace (i.e. JBS vs gigantic) for different weapons will remain?

[Kiara]

[*]Changing the duration between Armageddon to 30 days.[/list]

Oh this one will be trouble I think! Not related to equipment exactly... but quests are already suffering pretty badly from the 11 day uptimes. Ever tried finishing a quest and finding all the stuff lying around at the questmaster or nearby? I have, and manye others with me I bet. Some quests are just silly as it is, there can be "many" of the quest items you need to find just laying in rooms nearby, because people just drop their quest items when they are done with a quest. Its a mess. And when you try to solve the quest, you can just pick up the stuff and finish many quests fairly easy which takes away the questing part. AND, it may also give the player less reward for not finishing the quest themselves etc, just because they were "lucky" (or unlucky) to find heaps of quest items on the floor. With 30 days uptimes this problem will be even bigger.

Sooo.... dont just make equipment decay/rust etc. Make sure ALL items do that. Or quests will be an even bigger mess than they are now. And double and triple check so all quests actually reset. Once per armageddon quests will NOT be fun at all with 30 days armageddon.

Something positive with this idea is that the ridiculous "recycling" process before each armageddon disappears. Finally! Thats the biggest issue with equipment I think. Once you get your 5 black gem rings or 3 crystal axes or whatever, you can keep them forever and ever. Just destroy them before armageddon and get new saving ones. With the new system the same people can have 50 rings and 30 axes but others will still be able to get at least 1. Instead of the same people always having them.

Speaking of that, you mean that stuff like rings and medallions that logically cant break, and dont break now, will break too? Because if they dont, people will end up with hundreds of black gem rings and bloodstone medallions, ioun stones, thorns and stuff.

But if you do make them breakable, would not that kinda kill the whole thing with imbuing things and collecting stones? Who would spend countless of hours collecting stones, just to imbue an item that is bound to break in 3-5 days at best?? Ugh. No fun.

I think the idea sounds promising, but theres probably lots of issues with it... many none have thought about yet. You thought about the ones I presented?:)

[Zestana]

A very creative idea, Archie.

The Admin are currently discussing doing the following things to change some realities which will bear on this issue:

• Removing the "unbreakable" property from the game, so all weapons can, in fact, eventually be broken.
• Implementing a system by which all items will corrode or break within 3-5 days of (continued) use.
• Removing the item limit on all items in the game.
• Replacing the item limit with a very low chance that a given item will appear with each respawn. This will make them very rare always, irrespective of how close we are to the next Armageddon. It will also make them always available, if you are lucky.
• Removing the "glowing" concept and simply having all non-autoloading items save, always.
• Changing the duration between Armageddon to 30 days.

These changes haven't been approved yet, but I thought I'd throw them out there for people to chew on. This would be a pretty different setup with new pros/cons.

Discuss!

G.

I can't even begin to formulate why this screams wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. The only reasons I can think of is because none of you actually play the game.

I'd like to point out that there are really only 3-4 "unbreakable" weapons in the game. There is a difference between non-dulling and unbreakable. Make sure you look into that. If you do so go fix the damn Nazgul or you will make it even more SCOP only killable NPC. (DO NOT TURN THIS INTO A SCOP RANT ANYONE.) I say fix the damn Nazgul because only unbreakable weapons like SOH and Sledgehammers can do enough damage to it and not break.

Just get rid of smiths for number 2 then. Why bother going to sharpen and fix your gear if its just going to break in a day anyway....

So now in order for me to get the gear that I want. I have to camp each area for at least 6 hours, waiting for respawns (if you average NPC spawn rate at about 1.5 hours.) Hopefully I have enough time to do so otherwise someone will probably get the item I'm seeking while I'm out and about.

Congratulations!! You've now made equipment hunting, which is an aspect of the game that caters to a portion of Genesis's population complete utter, random, and blind luck. Hooray. Genesis can now become kill xxx, xxx died, move rooms, repeat.

Were you playing when we had Armageddons at 30 days before Gorb? Because I don't remember a single person liking it. There was shit, and I mean literally shit all over the game all of the time. Racks couldn't hold the amount of gear people brought in. And then there were the awesome fantastic crashes that were prone to happen (Yes this was with the current machine.)

You want a solution to people equipment hoarding that's easy?

Remove the percent chance of items saving as Armageddon draws closer. People can't hoard the gear as easily if it is actually a random percent chance the item can save. Currently your system is set up at.

Uptime: 0hr 1min - 12hr = 5% or lower chance of item saving
Uptime: Less than one day to Armageddon 95% or higher chance of item saving

In retrospect its more accurately about 0% and 100% there are those fluke spawns of gear. What does this mean. It means that you can destroy any item that has reached its limit cap in the last 2-3 days and when the item spawns again which normally happens within 2-3 kill cycles it is very nearly always going to save.

Make that random chance and you will find people unable to recycle gear effectively to the point where they can keep all copies of a limited item Armageddon after Armageddon after Armageddon.

Another fix that could be made. Whether you like it or not. Petros's numbers in regards to the percentage chance of an item spawning on an N{PC as I've pointed out to you multiple times over is not done right. Instead of an after Armageddon rush we now have a 2day and 6 hour to whenever the gear is distributed post rush. About one copy of items will be distributed in that first 2 days or so. Then sometime between 2.5 and 3.5 days gear begins to drop. And it drops repeatedly. Based on your system the chances of the glib elder in Terel spawning with 4 obsidian longswords in a row is practically impossible. Yet it happens every other Armageddon. Once one runed falchion drops I wouldn't recommend logging off. If you stick around for the next two spawnings of shadow-elves you will probably retrieve the rest of the runed falchions that are up for grabs.

Like I said though I've pointed this out, in fact I believe I've written a note or two on this board about it before, and I've been assured Petros's numbers are right. Well I'm here to say his numbers are wrong wrong wrong.

I'd really like it if the one aspect of the game I still kind of enjoy isn't taken away from me and utterly destroyed.

My 2cc on the matter... but if its like any other topic we've had on gear and item distribution on these forums the comments I've made won't be heeded.

[Alexi]

Thought I'd weigh in and give my two cents. I consider myself an "active" player lately and though right now the Union is going through a lull in player activity, we stay relatively well stocked with items to play each armageddon.

Now with imbuements, it makes it much much more easy to take a standard item, and turn it into something that makes life easier. With items glowing you can go and make an item last for almost two weeks, especially if it doesn't break or dull, which I would absolutely hate to think of those properties being removed from the game.

Then if you have the chance to take a already powerfully imbued item (Talking Runed Falchion or such) and imbue it further, well you've been given a delight.

With the current player base, and the current "active" player base, there are more then enough items to supplement the current population. I believe more items that are "marginally" good could be added to the game for imbuement purposes alone, but that's just my opinion.

[Zar]

I'll put my 2 cc

- 30 days limit seems dangerous. But if Wizards are sure about it, why not to trust them?

My solution would be:
- Implement checks every 2 hours. If item is not in use (wielded/worn) 6 straight checks -> dispose item.
- Make wizbot that will control characters idling with EQ for more than 1 hour (not moving, not answering, not fighting)
- Keep the limitation on unique/semiunique EQ.
- Keep unbreakable.

That will solve:
- hoarding EQ in racks by guilds that are not going to use this EQ.
- cleaning racks from useless EQ
- Less active guilds will have less EQ.
- People who obtain EQ will try to return and play to keep EQ alive (better overall player activity)

What do You think?

Z.

[Habiki]

I think that there should be at least some marginal chance of getting any gear piece, but maybe after a certain number have been more easily attained. I don't think my friends do this "gear recycling" and I was surprised to hear about it a few months ago. I think this is done by a smaller number of clever people or particular guilds and this problem should be dispersed somehow or other, as some are apparently using their knowledge as an exploit.

Kiara has a very good point about imbuing items with stones. I've spent tens of thousand of plats on imbued gear and stones since their implementation. It would be a let down to know I couldn't imbue non-dulling, saving items considering the difficulty it takes to get enough stones to make an intense imbuement. Quickly destroyed gear would also damage the auction economy we have going.

I kind of like the idea of long up-times, but considering the trash issue that would arise it seems like we'd want at least a decaying of non-gear trash items around the realms. This would be very hard to accomplish without causing an array of other problems, I think.

Also, as others have mentioned, I don't think any of this is a big enough issue to distract from the guild re-balancing and promotion campaigns.

Lastly, I think we need to consider scale-ability in whatever changes do happen to be implemented. We don't want to have wizards trying to change things again if we do happen to achieve a membership of say 100 players online at a time, which I think we will after the Facebook app is developed.