Why do we even need upkeep anymore?

[IceManX]

Wait wait, eat some glucose for your brain, read the post again, think about the game again, your logic etc etc and come back....
If any, the upkeep makes a bigger gap between new players and old players.
Let me tell you some things. First, im one of those "old players" you talk about. Just to clarify my point.
Second, let me tell you that only noobs and very bad players are afraid of guys wearing plate armor. Oh fuck man, i wasnt even afraid of them when there weerent limits and i was level 35 and those guys were 45 ....In the old crpg days plate armor was a problem yes. You actually had no wpf limit, no wpf penalty nothing, plate was just advantages. But that is not the case anymore, now, a plate user has a great wpf and speed run penaly that makes him .....lets say "not that good". So yes, in the old crpg, a guy wit 250 wpf and black armor was a problem, surely. But nowadays, the plate armor its just bad, the Wpf we got these days wont go over 170 in most cases (most ppl will stay at 150 or so) so the penalty you get for plate armor doesnt compensate.
Third. think before you talk, since most "old players" actually have tons of money and will have even more money when strategus is finally released so they actually arent affected by the upkeep.. while those new players will have to eat it or sell a heirloom...Understand why your logic is completly flawed?....

This is an interesting post and I must totally agree with you!

Old days nearly everyone was using Plate Armor, with all the Stuff (2h/Pole, double Xbow and so on). Huge amount of WPF.

Now we have a slot system, the combination of too many weapons is disabled. There is a cap at lvl 34, and imagine how long it takes to get there. Lvl 31 to lvl 32 takes as long as you lvl up from lvl 1 to lvl 31 and so on.
Even a player with lvl 34 could be killed by someone that is lvl 25-30.
Old days it was nearly impossible to kill one of the highlvl (35+) without a mass of players. I remember when some Blackplate guy was jumping into the enemies and killing 10 or more players.

The Upkeep system would have fit better to the old crpg version, to keep high lvl players more weak, and that they cant use everything everytime, they had their bonus of the lvl.

But since January crpg got a totally new look. Nearly everything was changed, from gear and stats, to the new xp/gold system, lvl cap, slot system and so on. It is so different from the old crpg.

And thats why I think we dont need an upkeep system. It doesnt fit to the "new" CRPG. Even when it was developed for the new version in January.

Upkeep is only punishing, above all the new players. It pushes the need to win even more, but after getting the x1 for a long time, u need to play in rags...
There are only 2 Teams, and 1 team must lose! That means ~50% of the players cant even win.

I hope the upkeep will be removed, that would be the best.
Or perhaps only lose 1 Multiplier when you lose instead of falling instantly back to x1.

[Overdriven]

Made a new topic on the difference of upkeep between classes and balancing upkeep on effectiveness on the battlefield:
http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,11408.0.html

[Mala]

Even if you are the unluckiest person on earth lost every round, then you still can wear stuff around 24k (that is an high tier 2hand/polearm/1hand+good shield with average medium armour).

[rustyspoon]

Reposting this from another post:

Upkeep in and of itself is not a problem.

My character with the cheapest gear runs around in 13k worth of gear.

My most expensive character runs around in 37k worth of gear.

Both are easily sustainable with upkeep even if I DIDN'T have a dump truck full of money. A lot of people complain about upkeep because they say they can't afford their equipment. That I think is bullshit. Other people complain about it because veteran players have so much money that they don't have to worry about upkeep. Don't you think that they should have some type of reward for playing a lot longer than you? Also, you can easily get a ton of money by retiring once and selling your heirloom point.

The big problem with upkeep is that it makes certain builds not viable, which really hurts the fun factor. I think this could be solved by re-balancing certain items in the game, making slight changes to the upkeep system and adding additional gold sinks.

When I say "slight changes to upkeep", I'd like the really high-tier stuff to cost more and the mid-tier and lower to cost less in upkeep. For this to work though, I think the new chadztext would need a logical, skill-based way of achieving it. Right not it seems totally random which does not support the idea that it is "skill-based". I've killed 12 people in a round and not gotten it and killed 1 guy and got it. Doesn't seem to make sense.

When I say "additional gold sinks" I'd like to see a new respec where you don't lose xp, but you lose a shit-ton of gold. Say 100k or so.

Item balancing in general needs to be adjusted. I'm not even an archer and I think the changes to archer upkeep are bullshit. I think the powerful arrows could be more regulated by making changes to their ammo size and damage. Now don't jump down my throat for suggesting this, this is just an example. What if Bodkin arrows saw a damage increase, but their ammo was lowered significantly? Say they did like 12 pierce but you only get 5 of them. That would require you to keep a different type of arrow with you, but you have some really good ones for when you come up again a hard target. The other arrows would be adjusted to cover the gaps. Again, just an example. Horses too need a fix. There REALLY needs to be a heavy horse that costs less than the Destrier. It hurts a lot of cav builds (especially 1h and 2h cav) that the cheapest horse that can take any amount of hits is the Destrier. Horse balance seems totally out of whack since the fastest and most maneuverable ones are the cheapest. I think their needs to be a heavy inexpensive one. To balance it out, just make it slow and give it bad maneuver. Again, just to give players more choices and add some diversity.

All-in-all my goals are really only to help add some more fun back into this mod that I dig so much.

[Lorden]

From what I understand, and I'd like to start by stating I did not read 9 pages of posts, repair costs have been raised to reduce inflation. The same way any national economy works. chadz probably looks at the market, sees what the average prices from looms are and adjusts so it does not get to insane. This is sound logic, as it stops long term players from making 500k+ for a loom point, and keeps looms accessible with a week's worth of regular playtime.

I do agree that some item costs need to be rebalanced. Destriers are too expensive -- on native they are a 50/50 choice for cav users depending on playstyle: More hits or more speed.  I believe that choice should be similar in cRPG.

Now, I've never played archer but here is what I've heard. Arrow costs have raised drastically in the last few patches. This is good, as most archer units wear light armor, and tend to stack 3 stacks of arrows on their build. Therefore, their total cost should approach that of a tincan. If you don't want to be paying tincan prices, diversify. Go for 1 stack of arrows and a sidearm, and pick up arrows on the ground as you go. If you want the liberty of having enough arrows without needing to scrounge, be prepared to pay for it.

[Overdriven]

Now, I've never played archer but here is what I've heard. Arrow costs have raised drastically in the last few patches. This is good, as most archer units wear light armor, and tend to stack 3 stacks of arrows on their build. Therefore, their total cost should approach that of a tincan. If you don't want to be paying tincan prices, diversify. Go for 1 stack of arrows and a sidearm, and pick up arrows on the ground as you go. If you want the liberty of having enough arrows without needing to scrounge, be prepared to pay for it.

If that were the case then bow accuracy should be dramatically increased. Otherwise you lose those 15 arrows in the first 1min and a half of the game. Arrows are not the same as heavy heavy armour.

[Prosed]

There's a lot of people who don't need to manage their gold. I have a dumptruck full of gold. I could wear plate all day every day if I wanted to and there are a lot more people that can also. I also thought this was a game about hitting people with swords, not Medieval Accountant.

There is one big difference between our current version and the pre-January version and you have to think of this from a new player's perspective. Pre-January you'll die a lot and get gold kind of slowly. But, when you buy an item, you have it and can always use it to it's full ability. It won't wear down or break. With the current version, you save up your money and buy that cool new whatever you wanted. But then, oh shit, you have to pay upkeep on it that you can't afford and you eventually can't use it anymore. As an experienced player, you know what items are worth it and how and when to spend your money. New players, not so much.

I also think that XP gain is WAY too slow. Nowadays it's a grind. With the old xp bonus, the benefit of being a high gen was the ability to try out new builds relatively quickly. There was a lot more "play" involved than there is now. With the current system, if you respec to try out a new build you then have to level it back up to 30 to REALLY try the build out. That takes a stupid amount of time.

Since a lot of people think upkeep is "SOOOO AWESOME" I came up with another idea for it awhile ago. A sliding scale of upkeep. To do this, all upkeep costs would be dropped dramatically. However, the higher "tier" of equipment you use would increase the chance of breakage. If you do the math right, upkeep for high-end items would be about the same, but dramatically less for low and mid-tier gear. It's much friendlier to newer players and then everyone can have their precious upkeep.

I still think that upkeep doesn't do much other than lessen the amount of fun. People say they don't want to go back to the horrible days of everyone and their mother on a plated charger wearing black plate, but as everyone who knows who played back then...it wasn't like that at all. Also, the nerfs to things like heavy armor and cav would make a situation like that not bad at all anyway.

A lot of people play this for Strategus anyway. So, why can't we make the regular game more fun as we level up our characters for Strategus?

I think this is part of the reason skip the fun is introduced? Now you can try out a build to decide if you want it on your main.

[Blondin]

Can ppl just stop to whine?

Stop being selfish, try to think in a general view, for interest of everybody. Seriously there is too much thread like this one, and there are all the same : USELESS.

do you realy believe that your endless thread will make chadz change is mind?

[DrKronic]

we totally need upkeep, and it should be raised to combat insolence

also upkeep percentage for high level characters using "cheap" gear should be raised

maybe also some kind of cap on gold gain if u are naked/armed with no weapon and high level(like say above 20)

[amsoly]

From what I understand, and I'd like to start by stating I did not read 9 pages of posts, repair costs have been raised to reduce inflation. The same way any national economy works. chadz probably looks at the market, sees what the average prices from looms are and adjusts so it does not get to insane. This is sound logic, as it stops long term players from making 500k+ for a loom point, and keeps looms accessible with a week's worth of regular playtime.

I do agree that some item costs need to be rebalanced. Destriers are too expensive -- on native they are a 50/50 choice for cav users depending on playstyle: More hits or more speed.  I believe that choice should be similar in cRPG.

Now, I've never played archer but here is what I've heard. Arrow costs have raised drastically in the last few patches. This is good, as most archer units wear light armor, and tend to stack 3 stacks of arrows on their build. Therefore, their total cost should approach that of a tincan. If you don't want to be paying tincan prices, diversify. Go for 1 stack of arrows and a sidearm, and pick up arrows on the ground as you go. If you want the liberty of having enough arrows without needing to scrounge, be prepared to pay for it.

How you feel that an archer with 3 stacks of arrows should approach the cost of a player wearing 24k gold cost plate armor?  I'm not seeing the logic between a lightly armed/armored archer and a tincan.

[Overdriven]

Can ppl just stop to whine?

Stop being selfish, try to think in a general view, for interest of everybody. Seriously there is too much thread like this one, and there are all the same : USELESS.

do you realy believe that your endless thread will make chadz change is mind?

If there are a lot of threads...it kinda means something

[Akubag]

Well i will not play this mod until the upkeep is removed. Not just because i don't like the system, but because i can't play my characters, i would need to wear much worse items to be able to play and i don't want to do that. I thought the meaning of the mod was that you could design your own character out of hundreds of armors and weapons, but now i can only access the bottom half because the rest is too expensive and just breaks. And im not gonna run around as a peasant with a pitchfork for 12 hours just so i can play my knight for 2 hours... That's shitty game design.

Some people say that with the old system, everyone ran around in plate armor. This is not true. Although a lot of people did have plate, there was still many using mid tier armors, since plate has a huge disadvantage, you move much slower. And even in plate, a hammer to the head will in most cases kill you instantly. I don't really see the problem, why should people not be able to use the expensive items? The drawbacks are there, slower movespeed, higher riding requirement, horse moves slower, not to mention the initial cost requires a lot of grind just to get them in the first place.

I think the upkeep should be scrapped entirely, that's my opinion.

[Andropov]

Yeah, I've stopped playing as well. The game simply isn't fun anymore.

[Andropov]

From what I understand, and I'd like to start by stating I did not read 9 pages of posts, repair costs have been raised to reduce inflation. The same way any national economy works. chadz probably looks at the market, sees what the average prices from looms are and adjusts so it does not get to insane. This is sound logic, as it stops long term players from making 500k+ for a loom point, and keeps looms accessible with a week's worth of regular playtime.

I do agree that some item costs need to be rebalanced. Destriers are too expensive -- on native they are a 50/50 choice for cav users depending on playstyle: More hits or more speed.  I believe that choice should be similar in cRPG.

Now, I've never played archer but here is what I've heard. Arrow costs have raised drastically in the last few patches. This is good, as most archer units wear light armor, and tend to stack 3 stacks of arrows on their build. Therefore, their total cost should approach that of a tincan. If you don't want to be paying tincan prices, diversify. Go for 1 stack of arrows and a sidearm, and pick up arrows on the ground as you go. If you want the liberty of having enough arrows without needing to scrounge, be prepared to pay for it.

But what if I don't want to play with a sidearm? What if I want to be a pure archer? Why is the game arbitrarily pigeonholing me into a role that I don't want to be in? This is atrocious game design.

[Tears of Destiny]

But what if I don't want to play with a sidearm? What if I want to be a pure archer? Why is the game arbitrarily pigeonholing me into a role that I don't want to be in? This is atrocious game design.

Don't use bodkins?
Most games make it very difficult to get the "best" items...