Curse

Sage Tylos · Aug 14, 2008, 12:40 AM // 00:40

Anet needs to stop destroying the game's original item sinks. We used to have:

1: There were no inscriptions.
2: Things broke when you salvaged.
3: Things are customized.

These three things together did a fairly good job as an item sink. The fact that thigns weren't inscribable made it much harder to obtain a 'perfect' anything. You'd have a sword with 15-22 req9 fall, but "omg it's damage plus 18% while HP is blow 50%? This isn't a good weapon." *merched* Or... "Oh, a 15-22 req9 sword with 15^50 just dropped, sweet, I'm keeping it. But now I have to remove the 20/20 and the +30HP from my 15-22 req9 14^50 sword. That means I have a 50% chance of losing a mod." *Salvage* "Drat! Got my 20/20 but the sword broke, now I need to buy or find a new +30HP."

The added effects being inherent to the weapon made it hard to get perfect ones, and in combination with customization and things breaking when salvaged, did a good job of keeping supply in check. But then came inscriptions, wand wraps, shield handles, and focus cores. Suddenly it was much easier to obtain a perfect anything. Sword has 15-22 req9, but only 14^Enchanted? No big deal, oh look this non-max req11 axe has the 15^50 I want. *salvaged* Since it was suddenly much easier to obtain perfect weapons, the market just as suddenly was flooded with way more of them, and so, the value of perfect weapons dropped greatly.

We still had customization and things breaking when salvaged... but then EotN introduced soemthing which would cause the weapon market to take a second major nose dive: Perfect Salvage Kits, which are guarenteed to not break the item, and thus you have a 100% chance of retriving all maxed mods. So suddenly the weapon market gets flooded with a greater number of maxed mods than ever before, and *POW* the value of stuff takes a hit. Basic law of supply and demand: supply goes up and demand remains the same? Price goes down.

Now we're holding on by a thread, customization is the only one of the three which hasn't been utterly destroyed by some added feature... they need to stop breaking the already existing item sinks is what needs to happen, before the weapon market falls through the basement altogether.

draxynnic · Aug 14, 2008, 02:41 AM // 02:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

For those what we need is a Xunlai Market. Make it easir to sell the stuff, and they will not store it so much.

And conversely, make it easier to buy the stuff, and people would be less likely to clog up their inventory with stuff they're hanging onto 'just in case'.

Which is also, for the record, why item degradation is bad. It'd just lead to more inventory clogging as people hold onto what they've got so they have a replacement for a degraded weapon, and may actually deflate the market for top-end skins - would you REALLY pay 100k+ecto for a voltaic spear that's going to become useless after a few months due to degradation? At best, such equipment would be PURELY vanity items that are just shown off because they're too valuable to actually USE, and then who cares if they were req13 non-max-damage in the first place?

zwei2stein · Aug 14, 2008, 12:07 PM // 12:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by R.Shayne

/notsigned, I see this suggestion as a short term fix, I want a long term fix.

I think we need someway to get items out of the market.

I say give players a reason to customize stuff because the current system isn't working, especially in caster area. How about customize for the account, not the character.

Have equipment degrade over time, not by much, something like 10% max. The equipment is still useful but a new one would be better.

Well this IS way to get em out of market. IDK, but it does not seem like short term solution for me as market for high-end armor components is quite stable over years: ectos and shards are still valuable (less, but they are still traded) and those armors are still being crafted.

(anyhow: what about weapons that degrade, but customizing them restores them to max and prevents any further degradation?... but degradation is still bad idea imho.)

Problem with degradation and other item sink schemes is that it pisses people off and its not fun ... why do that when we can give them something that doubles as goal and as new cool stuff and something they would do off their free will?

Besides, adding even stronger incentive to coverting items to tokens and leghtening lifespan of this scheme is only matter of new token collector.

The Little Viking · Aug 14, 2008, 12:19 PM // 12:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by birdfoot

@ OP:

1) Player has an unwanted green item
2) Player interacts with "Used Green" NPC to exchange 1x green item for 1x token
3) Player then takes token(s) and interacts with "Token" NPC(s) with the following options for exchange:
- 1x token for 1x Level 1 Drunk/Sweet/Party item
- 3x token for 1x Level 3 Drunk/Sweet/Party item or Sup ID Kit
- 5x token for 1x Sup Salvage Kit or UW/FoW Scrolls, etc

Basically, what I'm trying to come up with here is an alternative use for unwanted greens (rather than merchanting it for a meagre amount of gold) to exchange for something that is at least useful without causing too much impact to item prices.

*Note: This is still based on OP's idea.

I would use it. Aspecially for things mentioned here...all consumable items, (consumable meaning, things that dont last, that have to be replaced on a regular basis)

R.Shayne · Aug 14, 2008, 02:50 PM // 14:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

Well this IS way to get em out of market. IDK, but it does not seem like short term solution for me as market for high-end armor components is quite stable over years:

How long do you think it will take before players have stacks of these tokens and nothing they want to spend them on? Then we will see the price of tokens take a dive. It will be the same problem all over again, too many items on the market.

The only way the token suggestion would last is if anet kept adding skins and I don’t see this happening. If anet adds something like the 100k+e skins you are just going to upset the power traders when their 100k+e item is now worth 20k, wait that is a good thing. I am all for upsetting the power traders and watching them whine because their e-pen is shrinking.

I say just use the NPC Merchant to get ride of unwanted gold items then use the gold to buy what you want, gold is the only thing not dropping in value (and lock picks).

Grinch123456 · Aug 16, 2008, 11:40 AM // 11:40

I agree with OP although numbers can obviously be tweaked.

Matrix Arcade · Aug 16, 2008, 04:52 PM // 16:52

Its an interesting idea.. only problem is that you would only get rid of the very high amount of low-end golds/greens which doesn't really help since they are mainly merched already.. Find me a solution to the over-supply of the somewhat more high-end items and I'll be happy

.

(obviously there are also some flaws in your system, maar een kniesoor die daar op let.)

Barrett · Aug 16, 2008, 11:44 PM // 23:44

if items from collectors are customized then
yeh
otherwise ud get tons of zkeys sell em n b rich. :|