03-27-2012, 12:54 PM
I'm quoting Loki from a different thread, not wanting to derail it any further. There has been a lot of talk from staff recently about what they're thinking of doing for armour, and I don't know if what is being hinted at is that great an idea.
By high armour, do you mean the top 3? Top 6? Top 9? As someone who is selling a lot of armour people are buying the low stuff, a few buy the mid and you get the odd sale of the really top stuff. To break it up, I'd say Old Copper -> Bloodrock is low (2k-10k), Aqua -> Blackrock is mid (15k-50k), and Oceanic+ is high(75k-400k).
I wouldn't touch the high stuff, as much sells of that as you see mined up from the ground at the current price points.
The low stuff you could probably remove a couple of ingots types, mainly the duplicate AR value ingots, e.g. silver/verite, amethyst/gold, rose/something else.
What needs 'fixing' is the medium ingots, but that's not a supply thing. I (I am speaking as a semi-recently gm'd blacksmith who mined his ingots) have more than enough supply of the Aqua -> Blackrock (7k aqua + 16 sets available to 1k Blackrock + 16 sets available) and people aren't buying them, or barely.
Prices are already so low that if I dropped the mid any further nobody would buy the lower end stuff. The high end stuff I'm happy with, you go for the long sale on them at a high price, you shouldn't expect to see everyone running around in daemon steel plus..
But the mid, there is no reason to buy the mid. I've held off pricing the mid at the supply I have because it will destroy the market for low, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who could do that. To clarify, if I priced mid at the supply I have, it would be 8k~ for a full suit of Mytheril. At that point, why would anyone even bother buying anything lower, especially when people are making so much money from hunting.
So I think armours might need reworking more than the tweaking suggested. Different bonuses, or maybe change how AR works so that 1-2 points difference actually matters. You could instead reduce the amount of ingot types to shorten the ranges, as seems to be the plan, but unless you drop it to like 7 or 8 types, you aren't going to solve the problem. And if you drop rarity of the top even with a smaller range it'll just be the same problem.
If you increase supply of higher end you'll just end up with everyone in the top 3 armours, and no market for the smaller stuff. If that's your goal, then ok, fine. But I lament turning blacksmithing and mining into professions which produce disposable goods.
EDIT: Also Loki, I used your quote cos it had all the relevant info in it but it is more representative of all the info we seem to be getting from staff than targeted at you.
EDIT2: Some clarifications.
Loki Wrote:Raz, in reply to your earlier post you can expect significant changes to metal armours soon as well. We want more armour use and armour trading in the economy, part of that is reducing the top end gear a little and making it cheaper and easier to get. Note, before anyone gets upset, this does not mean top end gear will suck, the best gear will always be the best gear and it will always give some (reasonable) advantages.
So we aren't just going after ruining leather for no reason ya see...
By high armour, do you mean the top 3? Top 6? Top 9? As someone who is selling a lot of armour people are buying the low stuff, a few buy the mid and you get the odd sale of the really top stuff. To break it up, I'd say Old Copper -> Bloodrock is low (2k-10k), Aqua -> Blackrock is mid (15k-50k), and Oceanic+ is high(75k-400k).
I wouldn't touch the high stuff, as much sells of that as you see mined up from the ground at the current price points.
The low stuff you could probably remove a couple of ingots types, mainly the duplicate AR value ingots, e.g. silver/verite, amethyst/gold, rose/something else.
What needs 'fixing' is the medium ingots, but that's not a supply thing. I (I am speaking as a semi-recently gm'd blacksmith who mined his ingots) have more than enough supply of the Aqua -> Blackrock (7k aqua + 16 sets available to 1k Blackrock + 16 sets available) and people aren't buying them, or barely.
Prices are already so low that if I dropped the mid any further nobody would buy the lower end stuff. The high end stuff I'm happy with, you go for the long sale on them at a high price, you shouldn't expect to see everyone running around in daemon steel plus..
But the mid, there is no reason to buy the mid. I've held off pricing the mid at the supply I have because it will destroy the market for low, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who could do that. To clarify, if I priced mid at the supply I have, it would be 8k~ for a full suit of Mytheril. At that point, why would anyone even bother buying anything lower, especially when people are making so much money from hunting.
So I think armours might need reworking more than the tweaking suggested. Different bonuses, or maybe change how AR works so that 1-2 points difference actually matters. You could instead reduce the amount of ingot types to shorten the ranges, as seems to be the plan, but unless you drop it to like 7 or 8 types, you aren't going to solve the problem. And if you drop rarity of the top even with a smaller range it'll just be the same problem.
If you increase supply of higher end you'll just end up with everyone in the top 3 armours, and no market for the smaller stuff. If that's your goal, then ok, fine. But I lament turning blacksmithing and mining into professions which produce disposable goods.
EDIT: Also Loki, I used your quote cos it had all the relevant info in it but it is more representative of all the info we seem to be getting from staff than targeted at you.
EDIT2: Some clarifications.