Make prices of weapons, armor a factor the latest market prices.

[Thomek]

(click to show/hide)

I think I have proposed this one before.. but I think it was before the market appeared.

Thus reflecting their popularity and counterbalancing their eventual OP-ness.

I'm not a communist. I don't believe that Paul the Teknokrat and Fasader the unbalancer can ever guess the perfect pricing of a weapon or piece of armor. They might come pretty close to fair play by doing weapon stat adjustments, but the actual value of a weapon or armor depends on the current and ever-changing metagame.

How does it work? A crude example:  (Should average prices of the last 30 days)

- Let's pretend Danish Greatsword has fallen down to from 1mill average to 750. Upkeep of the weapon will fall down to a 3 quarters. DGS users have more money to put into armor.
- At the same time Longsword has suddenly surged in popularity and is now going for 1.5 up from 750. Longsword users pay more upkeep.

* Now.. a smart ass player has realised that having a LONG weapons is not so important because of the decline in DGS users and found the Long Iron Mace at 500k suddenly very viable. He has great success with it while paying pityfull upkeep. Until one day the metagame shifts so much the Long Iron Mace becomes highly sought after and the price surges up to 1mill. So does his upkeep.  (or not, keep reading)

Many of the complaints against this idea were that upkeep becomes more unpredictable, but this can easily be rectified. What if your upkeep for a weapon gets locked at the moment of purchase?

What will probably happen with this idea in place, is that less sought after items become cheaper, and players will have an incentive to try new weapon and armor combos. Very heavy armor will probably become cheaper too as the consensus is that it's not really that good right?

And we will have fewer Kuyak clones.. As the perfect upkeep+performance hole might be shifted around.

For the record.. Ninjas like me would probably have to pay the most for this idea, but I don't mind..

Eventually, upkeep of items will be closer to their actual demand and thus have a price more true to their battlefield value. (And pretty things cost more too.. )

[Lactating Vegetables]

And then people like me who use the laudio ( fuck knows its spelling, but it has no stab 1h sword) pay no upkeep at all

[San]

How could the market price be more accurate than how often a certain item is used on the server? The staff has stats for the number of kills for each weapon type, so I doubt tracking gear will be hard to do, even if just approximating for unique users.

There isn't much variance on loom prices in general, except for times when a popular item has been nerfed or a rare item has been buffed. You could see loomed gear at a decent price because of rarity/look, and you won't see a loomed item any more expensive than the price of a loom point x 3 or less than the most expensive x2 most of the time.

Even so, I'm not certain what it tries to fix. From what I get from the OP, overused gear should cost more in upkeep. This contradicts most people's choices for good gear at a reasonable upkeep.

[Kafein]

I fear this might very well cause snowball effects that might alter diversity in a very very bad way.

At the moment loomed DGS are bloody cheap. Not because the weapon is bad, it is still one the best 2h and one of the best melee weapons in cRPG. It's cheap because everybody that wants one has one. In this case, reducing the upkeep according to the market value would make this weapon even better by reducing its upkeep. A better weapon would mean an increased price but also more people using LP to create loomed DGS, which would increase their number and reduce the price.

And since we can't possibly differentiate between the causes of low prices, may it be low demand (bad weapon) or high supply (good weapon), I don't think this suggestion can be applied as is.

[Lactating Vegetables]

^ what he said ^

[Thomek]

I hate to say it, but I think you are right Kafein... 

Perhaps then it should be based on popularity.. The point is anyhow to give weapons, armors, perhaps even bows, arrows and horses a price that reflects their effectiveness. A system to automatically balance gear according to current metagame.

[Haze_The_Hobo]

I think there's nothing wrong with the prices and upkeep currently.

[Grumbs]

Things being popular doesn't necessarily mean they're the best items. There will always be trend setters and their followers, just remember Chase with his build changes in the last year. It seemed whatever he happened to be using became super OP and needed a nerf.

People will always have a sense of whats "best", and people will copy that to try to achieve similar results. I don't even know why people ever had a thing for DGS, all the other great swords seem just as good or better in some ways. But if someone asks which 2 hander is best, they will say something or other and then people will copy that, and you have more on the server, and then people want it nerfed because its popular (so much be OP)

People will use stuff just because it looks good too. Encouraging diversity could be about simply improving the aesthetics of certain items. When you sheath a weapon on your back with a Heavy Kuyak it looks better than it clipping through metal, it looks like its in or behind fur.

I could go for some things becoming cheaper if they're unpopular though, but making things more expensive might not be that fair when people are just copying what they see people do well with.

[Phew]

I'd rather the devs creep the stats up on unpopular weapons until they gain popularity. For instance, 1h in particular has a bunch of lower-tier weapons that are just flat inferior to more expensive options, i.e. slower or weaker or shorter with no bonus elsewhere to compensate. I think cheaper weapons should be faster than they are, since peasants have low wpf.

For instance, the Falchion; 30 cut, no stab, 96 speed, 80 reach. Weak, slow, short. This weapon could be 103 speed, and it would still be a pretty lousy alternative to say a Liuyedao, but at least it would have something going for it.

[Thomek]

It would anyway be a nice tool for the balancers to figure out if the performance of a weapon is more or less right.

[Kafein]

I'd rather the devs creep the stats up on unpopular weapons until they gain popularity. For instance, 1h in particular has a bunch of lower-tier weapons that are just flat inferior to more expensive options, i.e. slower or weaker or shorter with no bonus elsewhere to compensate. I think cheaper weapons should be faster than they are, since peasants have low wpf.

For instance, the Falchion; 30 cut, no stab, 96 speed, 80 reach. Weak, slow, short. This weapon could be 103 speed, and it would still be a pretty lousy alternative to say a Liuyedao, but at least it would have something going for it.

I know this is just an example, but you do not want a 30 cut 103 speed weapon to exist.

[Shaksie]

I know this is just an example, but you do not want a 30 cut 103 speed weapon to exist.

Liuyedao is 31c 102 speed?

[Phew]

Liuyedao is 31c 102 speed?

I specifically used the Liuyedao as an example, because it is flat better than the Falchion in every stat. It seems like Falchion should be faster than the Liuyedao, since it is shorter and does less damage. There are several players that use +3 Liuyedaos (34 cut, 103 speed), and they are less likely to double-hit someone than your typical Miaodao user (96 speed), just because 1h animations aren't really set up for double hits, but 2h are.

[Shaksie]

Friend, I was talking to Kafein.

1h animations aren't really set up for double hits, but 2h are

That is... not true.
I double hit very often and the 1h left swing is by far the best double swing animation.
I found the most effective double hitting build was when I was a 21/15 one hand thrower/shield hybrid.
I had barely over 110 wpf and I could double hit the majority of players (I do certain things that set up double hits, mindless double hitting doesn't work very often) where I used a +3 Niuweidao (I only chose it because of the extra weight and sex appeal).
I would extrapolate that since a lot of good players despise 2h (myself included, [not saying I am good, I just don't like 2h] I wish to rid myself of it as soon as possible), they move to 1h and double hitting is frowned upon so they may feel that their reputation will be tarnished should they double hit. It is also surprisingly hard to do it effectively and against certain players and if not done correctly it is very risky.

[Phew]

Even the spammiest Liu/Niu/Scimi players don't seem to be able to double hit very reliably, but servers are always loaded with Miaodao/Longsword/HBS/Katana wielders that hiltslash their way to the top of the scoreboard. I'm sure there are tricks to double-hit with a fast 1h, but it happens to me rarely enough that I'm not worried about peasant 1-handers getting a speed buff.