Item dedgradation

[Rook 0]

After re-watching an episode of SAO, I got the idea that maybe we should discuss adding in Item degradation or Item health. For one it will add another dimension to the RP having to monitor your item health and all. It would also help boost business for all the player owned shops since players would have to get their gear repaired or buy new gear. Not thinking to heavily into it yet, a rough a idea for how the system could work is as follows.

 

All weapons and armor will have a certain amount of uses based of the rarity of the weapon, higher the rarity the more uses you get. For weapons one use will be consumed for every Successful  attack you land with it. For armor one use will be consumed every time an opponent or monster Successfully lands a hit. This could also open the door for some monsters such as floor bosses or what have you being able to degrade armor/weapons faster which would add an interesting aspect to the fight to have to plan around if you ask me.

 

As for repairing the item, it would require you to bring it to a player of the proper profession. From there said player will have to use 1 material and roll a successful CD roll that would normally create an item of the same level or higher as the one you are trying to repair. If an Item reaches zero health however before you get a chance to repair it, said item is lost forever. You could also add in an item that maybe merchant players could sell that if used on an item in combat restores a certain amount uses in the item.

[Xanatos 0]

Or maybe we could look at rolling epic fails as being a way that weapons become damaged? I think it's an interesting idea but I get the feeling that a lot of the proposed changes are meant to get more attention and thought by the GMs when we clear floor 10. But that's just my opinion.

[Rusty 0]

I think this would pretty cool but not many people would like it considering that losing your item forever is a waste of col. Also, since there aren't many active people in professions, what if somebody needs it fixed fast for a roleplay they are doing. Good idea, but needs some improvement.

[Mari 1]

The idea is good to implement in theory little worried about how to enforce it ; players may not want to keep track of every successful hit liek that it is time consuming, maybe every mob/player defeated instead

Also I would not want an item completely destroyed - people get sentimental over their items and we also have unique grade items I would hate to see destroyed

[Calrex 0]

Maybe instead of completely destroyed it could be like how it works in Dying Light, the item can be used, but because it's broken it'll only be a fraction as effective as it would be while it is repaired. (Ex. a +3 Damage weapon would only do +1 Damage until it gets repaired. For a +1 weapon when its broken you will not get any bonuses, etc.)

[Azide 0]

I entertained the same idea with Baldur when we were brainstorming a corresponding game mechanic for the "Durability" trait from the canon. Interestingly, I had the same idea as Xanatos on how it would hypothetically work, with durability decreasing on BD 1's for weapons and MD 10's for armor (giving a 10 DB item an expected use of 100 times, for example).

However, we ended up dismissing the idea due to the same reason that Mari presented- it's a little inconvenient to monitor and enforce. It's the sort of thing that works better in an automated system, in my opinion.

[Xanatos 0]

I would hate if Immortal Fang was destroyed XD It has a unique story and is a big part of my character history. So I definitely agree with Mari and Azide on that point.

[Quick Silver 0]

Do what they do in Dark Souls II, a item does break, but doesn't fade away, just have to get it repaired, my thoughts, have a NPC Repair shop, and have players pay them instead of other players. Like 500 Col for weapons in general, and 750 Col for armor.

[Mari 1]

At this stage it is very difficult to monitor and enforce something like that; however it does not mean it is completely off the table; it is a good idea.

[Baldur 0]

The only realistic way I could see it happen would be by thread, cause we can't ask a GM/PST to go through and tally up every hit/miss/crit in every thread they lock.

[Rook 0]

Yeah, wasn't really thinking about the accountability factor. I still think an improved version of the idea(implementing some of the suggestions posted here, plus maybe some other brainstorming) could result in an interesting mechanic.

[Baldur 0]

I completely agree.

However mechanics should support the story/narrative, and add to the enjoyment of the game.

I think there are better ways to accomplish the same effect given the style of gameplay we have to work with

[Sunny 0]

Being completely new to all of this, none of what i say probably means much but...

 

I like the idea of items having a set number for durability. And it can either be drained with each successful hit, which would require a little more bookkeeping, or it could be it loses 1 point per crit fail which i think is the better option.

 

And as for maintaining gear, I like the idea of having to roll as if you were making the item, but I think it needs to be slightly easier. Like, the point of upkeeping a particular item is because it takes a lot less effort than just making a new one. Im not sure on the specific math or whatever to make it easier, though.

 

For broken weapons though it should be that when an item is broken, instead of being destroyed, it simply is reduced to doing 1 damage, and it can't crit, until its repaired, no matter how good of a weapon it is. It would also be more expensive and difficult to repair a fully broken item as opposed to patching up a damaged one.

[Daeron 1]

My opinion on this is a current "No".

 

Now before you jump the gun here and be like "Excuse me, but you can't just say a one word answer here!" Well first off, I can, but luckily for you I won't I will go in depth on why I chose a no for this idea in general. You see, there's one problem and it isn't the idea itself. The problem itself is the people. The entire idea would have been done long ago if we didn't have to worry about people cheating their weapons. I know that there are some of you who are actually honest with everything, and that's great! Seriously, keep it up. But, it's because of those people that the system would be broke.

 

Due to the fact that we are on a text-based RP Forum, we have no system that can force logging successful hits and reducing it from the item automatically, which makes it awful hard to make sure people really are doing what they should be. I mean, it's already rough enough that we as the staff team have to approve journals, items, rolls for crafting, rolls for GM events, etc. If we add a task to the list and it really is a MICROMANAGING job. We'd literally have to read EVERY SINGLE POST to EVERY RP only to find that the player may have missed 90% of the time. Then along with that we have to check if the people logged their rolls, since with this system it would make it mandatory for us to prove that it really should have been deducted from the item's durability.

 

So there you go, it's not so much that I don't want this to happen, but more so because it simply can't happen. If you can find a fool-proof method of doing this, then please hit us up as the staff team, because we'd like to know this then. We'll gladly implement it into the system, but keep in mind of how much labor it would take on staff. We can't be on here all hours every day, we have lives off of the site as well.

[Reusririasuir 0]

You could do threads instead of posts, which would mitigate a portion of the work-load, but either way; it will still be very hard to maintain accountability.

 

Or as mentioned, you could do critical failures sustained; but you would still need to add durability x/x to the weapon crafting information, as well as a date crafted. And then you'd be able to check the date crafted against perma-dice roll dates >= date crafted where bd roll = 1; but even then you still have issues sorting which weapon was used in which thread, or handling weapon changes mid-thread...very messy problem indeed.

 

Such a cool mechanic too! :(

 

I do think that weapons should only break, if they are on the last durability point and then that's used up; but prior to breaking they could be repairable. Maybe even repairable with ranges such as 8/10 - 10/10 can be resharpened, once, no penalty. 6/10 - 8/10 resharpened to +2 durability, once. 2/10 - 6/10 resharpened +3 durability, up to two times (but not back-to-back resharpening's). All a moot point though without an easy way to keep track of re-sharpenings and durability and weapon usage stats.

[Mari 1]

At this stage it is still a no.

 

I am going to quote Daeron here as he sums up my feelings on the matter perfectly:

 

So there you go, it's not so much that I don't want this to happen, but more so because it simply can't happen. If you can find a fool-proof method of doing this, then please hit us up as the staff team, because we'd like to know this then. We'll gladly implement it into the system, but keep in mind of how much labor it would take on staff. We can't be on here all hours every day, we have lives off of the site as well.

 

 

 

And with that this thread will be locked as it is now simply going around in circles :)