Best posts made by Tuoni

@PeachMcD Typically gear repairing works as a gold sink because it is easily the most effective mechanic to remove ingame currency from the game and avoid inflation. It is very easy to implement, e.g. city blacksmiths could offer repair services. If gold can be effectly remove from the game via other methods then repairing is not necessarily needed.

If there will not be repairing that means items will decay and eventually be destroyed, this of course works as an item sink making more demand for new stuff. However, this might lead to situation that people do not want to use their best equipment so it will not be destroyed, however, if every gear is easily replaceable then the decaying does not matter that much or at all.

If the items will be unrepairable that will have huge negative impact for trading used items. If we think on top of that the enchanting variations, there will be way too much different options for sales making the listing of all items a nightmare and system where most of the stuff will not just sell.

One option is that most of the stuff is meant to be salvaged like @Gothix mentioned and trading is build around resource markets rather than crafted items. This sounds of course really bad for players who are interested of meaningful crafting and also for players who like full loot system where you can actually get gear rather than just resources.

Therefore, I predict huge design issues what developers will need to struggle with.

@Ostaff It is really hard to make most of the enchant variations reasonable choises especially if there are at least hundreds of different possibilities, perhaps even more. Making enchants for yourself does not need to be that accurate and you can make some concessions and testings. However, when you try to sell something weird, special or different, that can be hard, because supply does not reply to general demand.

Moreover, if we think the loot drops, what if most of the stuff you get are weird low durability items what does not suit for you and are also hard to sell?

If we go back to original question; How do you think Economy will actually function?

Because of several open questions and unresolved issues, I predict fundamental problems.

@Razvan said in How do you think the Economy will actually function?:

@Tuoni said in How do you think the Economy will actually function?:

Because of several open questions and unresolved issues, I predict fundamental problems.

This is my exact feeling.

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At this point, we don't have enough information and it's very hard to predict how the economy will work.

A solution that would make the market usable would be to have dedicated refiners instead of dedicated crafters and only be able to sell mats on the market instead of full items. Instead of having item quality, you have material quality which would be affected by refiner's stats. Crafted items have the same quality as the materials they are made of. Damaged items can be refined into raw materials, which scales with durability. So basically it's the Ikea of MMOs - buy the raw mats and assemble your item. Later on they can add QOL features like preset market orders so you can buy a bunch of different materials with just one click.

I agree that this is one of the options to handle the "current" situation. Creating the trading around resources would work, however, that will be so much away from crafting and looting.

Ikea of MMOs...

@Gothix said in How do you think the Economy will actually function?:

Items not requiring repair, doesn't necessarily mean items must have decay.

Perhaps there is no item decay, as well as no durability (so no repairs).

That is one option, however, I remember that durability was planned... at least at the moment.

And the way sink will work is by limited storage capacity players will have and will not be able to store millions of items.
Then players will need to dismantle items to percantage of base materials, because materials will stack and be usable to craft other things.

Limited storage capacity is one of the worst things what games can offer tbh. Forcing people to destroy items is what I do not want to see, in addition, the resources will also take storage space and typically even more than the salvaged item.

This percentage of returned base materials does not need to be high. It can be, for example, 20%. This will sink the materials.

Also perhaps re-enchanting an item will be so expensive that it will be more worth for a player to simply craft new, and enchant it from scratch.

Add loosing of gear, through PvP, people breaking stolen items, and you have efficient sink.

Item durability and decay arent the only ways to create that sink.

I thought gaming should be fun and loots actually rewarding. Why implement system and make it so expensive that there is no reason to use it? Moreover, why go to PK and get random resources from item salvages when you can just go to gather and get what you actually want or need?

I am also wondering how the trading of crafted (brand new) gear pieces will work out especially if the enchanting is involved? Enchanting offers tons of variations which can once again make the listing in market places quite overwhelming, in addition, that will also lead to situation where most of the stuff put in the market will not sell. Back in beta test phase Albion Online faced a similar problem, the markets were full of gear pieces with different abilities and passives, and only the cookie cutters were sold. Therefore, they changed the system that abilities and passives are no longer chosen during the crafting process and players can change these freely, with appropriate cooldown of course.

How this problem is planned to be handled in Fractured? One option is to sell crafted items without enchant, but how the enchanters will make money then? Perhaps enchanters could create enchanted scrolls which are then sold and attached to the gear pieces afterwards, like in WoW. However, are we still in situation that only cookie cutter enchant scrolls will sell and we just moved the problem from items to enchants?

@Ostaff It is true that the big boyz have not come yet and they will catch the game during the beta or for the launch.

@Ostaff said in How will you be making your $$?:

@Tuoni said in How will you be making your $$?:

@Ostaff It is true that the big boyz have not come yet and they will catch the game during the beta or for the launch.

The best defense we have against those incoming guilds is that all the governor spots have already been taken and accounted for. So the best cities will already be taken by the time they get here.

...and the cities are claimable.

This gamer profile thing was really interesting and now when I have analyzed a little bit more the results, I have to say that it somewhat surprised me. Having Story only 21% is odd because I mainly like the story lines if game have those at first place. Having Social 52% could be less tbh and Action only 18% sounds pretty low. If I think Bartle's Taxonomy I guess I would put myself to Achiever category, however, I am kind of all around player why I see Bartle's theory kind of problematic, at least when thinking myself. Anyhow, most of the percentages are kind of what I expected but perhaps I waited more for the Achiever part, because achieving goals represents fun for me.

@Zori said in Bartle's Taxonomy and this game.:

@Tuoni said in Bartle's Taxonomy and this game.:

This gamer profile thing was really interesting and now when I have analyzed a little bit more the results, I have to say that it somewhat surprised me. Having Story only 21% is odd because I mainly like the story lines if game have those at first place. Having Social 52% could be less tbh and Action only 18% sounds pretty low. If I think Bartle's Taxonomy I guess I would put myself to Achiever category, however, I am kind of all around player why I see Bartle's theory kind of problematic, at least when thinking myself. Anyhow, most of the percentages are kind of what I expected but perhaps I waited more for the Achiever part, because achieving goals represents fun for me.

I was quite surprised myself that i scored quite high on social, but when I reflect upon it, on the broader perspective a lot of the activities that I enjoy tend to be socially oriented.

As for Bartle's Taxonomy, you gotta keep in mind that this was written and published more than 20 years ago. It became a cornerstone for many mmorpg theories but naturally, things have evolved overtime and more layers of nuances were uncovered through the years of studying and applying it so it wouldn't be 'fully' applicable for every situation, particularly with us who have peculiar/developed taste when it comes to mmorpgs. The technology has made leaps and bounds that allowed us to have/use concepts that weren't possible before.

Yeah I know, I am somewhat familiar with Bartle's Taxonomy or at least I have watched some videos related to the topic. The main problem imo is that players are categorized only to those four specific categories and having no other options or different variations. Therefore, I liked more of this gamer profile thing because it calculates every aspect individually.

@Jetah This is not about sandbox having rules. Yeah some rules are in TOS like account related stuff, behaviour in general, cheating, advertising, and stuff like that. TOS is not a place to say players that "do not play on every planet with your guild members, even we allow you to do that". WTF? That makes zero sense. If any developer would do a stupid thing like that, I would LMAO and leave.

If developers do not want players to cross-realm then they will do in game restrictions to prevent that kind of behaviour. However, I believe that devs will not do that because they do not want to. I bet they want players to have that oppurtunity to play how they want in as many planets they like and they do not want to make any restrictions there.

I would say that griefers could be a sub-category for killers.

When examined today, I see the most flaw in Bartle's theory that Killers and Achievers are set as an opposite types, because those can easily go hand by hand as well. Perhaps back then there was no serious goals for PvP and it was just having fun to kill other players without anything particular to achieve. Today PvP offers so much more and typically has a key role in many MMOs, especially in sandbox games. WoW is a good exmaple where these two aspects are combined using a PvP ranking system. Later the PvP evolved from open world to arenas and battlegrounds to offer more goals to achieve on top of the PvP action.

If we think in general it is quite risky to buy the most expensive package after watching few minutes of alpha gameplay, especially if it produced by a startup company/studio. I would suggest to do more background work before making such investment. However, if the amount of money is not a problem then why not I guess.

Regarding to latest article: ALPHA 2 – TEST 3 LAUNCH DAY REVEALED

"Dexterity now provides a 1% Move Speed modifier per point."

In open world and especially in different PvP situations, mobility is typically the key when chasing or escaping. Therefore, could we face a situation where assigning points to the dexterity can be a mandatory regardless of your class or build? I bet mages, healers and warriors would like to focus on other attributes instead of DEX.

@Freas In the recent test, the movement speed bonus was not there so it obviously could not been an issue. You kind of looked it from 1v1 fight pov and I agree anything can happen there, but base speed bonus can make kiting builds very strong. Anyhow, base speed bonus can have a huge impact for ganking and escaping which are typical open world encounters. It can be hard to escape from faster gankers if they can eventually catch you. Oh well, if this movement speed bonus will be a thing I guess my ganker char will be hunter/rogue type and focused for DEX.

@Gothix said in Dexterity giving speed bonus might be an issue:

@Tuoni if you put points in speed, then you will lack points somewhere else. So you are fast, but if a melee with STR CON, catches you using movement spells, you will easily eat the bullet.

You can't gank someone if you are fast, and he is strong, he will just turn around and kill you.

Assuming 1 vs 1 here, and equal playing skills.

If you are 2 (or more) vs 1, then no ammount of points matter where they are, several players will always beat 1, no matter how you turn it. There is no escape.

Point is if you are kiting spec (hunter) then speed is beneficial, but if you are (warrior) then its better to minmax combat, and use movement spells, to catch up to your target, and slows to prevent him from escaping.

The general thing is that everybody (noobs aside) uses mobility based abilities as much as possible. That is quite standard procedure in open world games which has full loot system. If you lack mobility then you can be considered as dead in most of the cases or you are a ganker who does not actually catch anyone. Even most of the 1v1 fight situations ends up for a chase when the losing side escapes, perhaps for good or to make comeback after healing himself. Players who will lack mobility will be easy targets for gankers regardless you have assign points for strenght or constitution. Player who is more mobile can also easily escape the fight if the otherside is too strong. On top of that rogue and hunter classes will anyway bet on dexterity and still be equal strong in PvP when compared for warriors.

In open world PvP games the chases and escaping situations can be really long, and then only few % speed bonus can make a huge different and determine the result. If a group goes for ganking it is enough that 1 - 2 character(s) have maxed their mobility to catch the target. These characters can be hunters or rogues so they would max the dexterity anyway. Minority of the open world fights are somewhat fair or equal, and typically those will be chases or turn one after the otherside is losing. If mounting will be fast and its easy to escape that way then I guess the speed bonus does not have that much impact, however, that might make the ganking quite pointless activity.

@Zori I kind of share your concern and I hope that personal estates can somewhat compete with towns and will have a serious meaning. Perhaps the farming and breeding can make personal plots more sense like @Razvan mentioned, however, I hope other professions would not fall totally in city stations' shadows.

It looks like people are not familiar with planned PvP systems especially for Syndesia and now they are worried because of the current special testing environment. Therefore, it is good to start with Spotlight @Sativo just linked ^^. On top of that it is good to undertand that the gaming world will be divided to 3 different planets to cater 3 different playstyles. So there will eventually be 2 of 3 PvP planets, Tartaros without any restrictions and Syndesia with criminal/flagging system. That means also in syndesia you are able to attack unflagged players but with consequences. Therefore, current testing environment is not what there will be in future.

@Billa2720 said in Is Alt-Spamming even a bad thing?:

There is a difference between having multiple characters and having multiple clients running. I have no problem with people having alts (multiple characters run one at a time) as apposed to multiboxing (running multiple clients at the same time). True there are some time based situations where alts can give a big advantage, like garrisons in World of Warcraft. There are other situations where they do not, Like gardening in Black Desert where crops only grow while you are online and the contribution points to rent farm plots are shared across the account.

In themepark games like WoW (retail) I do not mind much of the benefits from alts because the impact is typically quite small. However, garrison is a good example where alts can matter a lot. That BDO systems sounds somewhat interesting, however, in other hand it benefits those who can play 24/7.

In sandbox games with player driven economy and open world PvP the situation is totally different. There alts can give economical advantage over other players and alt scouts are used for spying ganking opportunities. These two factors what alts can bring to the table are something I personally see as the main downsides of them.

@MaxFlex I agree that in Albion scouts are a problem in every way.

@MaxFlex said in Is Alt-Spamming even a bad thing?:

But in this game, making many characters or accounts is GOING to be pretty pointless because of how the game is planned. You should be able to have 1 character and be able to respec it however you want. Plus there should be enough Knowledge Points to spend on everything and still have some left over.

Actually you cannot respec however you want because e.g. attributes cannot be changed from the fly like gear or abilities. Therefore, you are kind of locked to play a certain playstyle. On top of that there is three main races and all their sub-race options, therefore, I would say it is not pointless to create several characters.