Replace Upkeep with a gear-penalizing system based on the autobalancer

[Kafein]

We all know it, today upkeep is only a problem for beginners.

People use what they want whenever they want, and this forces level 20 toons to compete with behemoths that take 10+ solid hits to die. On top of that, upkeep can create a significant hole in a new player's budget, or at least slow him down considerably, even with subpar equipment.

What about ditching upkeep completely and modifying the autobalancer in a way that factors equipment cost much more ? I could write a jokerpost describing in detail different methods to do this but I am quite certain the devs could figure out something good themselves if they wanted to do this.

Amongst the advantages of such a system :
- Getting rid of upkeep but keeping a limiting factor to gear.
- This is is more dynamic and robust than upkeep. People being able to trade LP etc. cannot break such a system.
- High cost gear could be more overpowering than it is now, acting as a real force multiplier without increasing the chances of winning.
- The need to balance things that can't possibly be balanced in a convincing way (yes, plate and cav should be OP) is decreased.
- Choosing a low cost or a high cost setup can have different advantages. If you are able to have a significant influence over the round outcome on yourself, you are better using very effective gear.
- Team size could vary more, creating more variety in the battles from the start.

[no_rules_just_play]

for some reason i like it, however im sceptical for abuse. what about the first round?

[Commodore_Axephante]

This sounds really solid to me, but would it replace banner-stacking entirely? If so, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of clans (outside of strat)?

[CrazyCracka420]

This sounds really solid to me, but would it replace banner-stacking entirely? If so, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of clans (outside of strat)?

Tough titty, it's a public server, not a scrimmage or match server.  I say this as someone who routinely enjoys x5s because of the banner stack.  I'd rather have good fights, than stacked fights.

[Commodore_Axephante]

Tough titty, it's a public server, not a scrimmage or match server.  I say this as someone who routinely enjoys x5s because of the banner stack.  I'd rather have good fights, than stacked fights.

Easy to say when you've been benefitting from the stacked fight for so long

The rest of us are still dreaming about that day.

But, maybe you're right. Taking that out could be for the best. But then, maybe there ought to be a scrimmage or match server, as you mentioned.

[CrazyCracka420]

It's true, but that's not why I say that.  As someone who played counter-strike as active as I play cRPG (actually more active) for about 6 years and enjoyed pubs just as much as matches, I've always had this mentality.  Although in CS public servers being on the winning team wasn't as big of a deal since there was no long term XP or character building.

If teams were ever lopsided I always joined the losing team, and prided myself on making them into the winning team.  I'm not humble, but at least I'm "honorable" (aka I am super competitive and enjoy a challenge, so it has nothing to do with honor)

[Rumblood]

I like evenly matched contests. I don't like limiting player options when it comes to their gear and playstyle decisions. The team is what should be balanced in battle, not individuals vs individuals. Level 20's aren't forced to compete against behemoths. They are on a team with other behemoths going against behemoths and lvl 20's.

[Kafein]

This sounds really solid to me, but would it replace banner-stacking entirely? If so, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of clans (outside of strat)?

Banner stacking could still be in, just like it is in right now, with all the other factors. Instead of balancing individuals, the autobalancer could first group them by banner then come up with a good equilibirum by balancing banners instead of players.

I like evenly matched contests. I don't like limiting player options when it comes to their gear and playstyle decisions. The team is what should be balanced in battle, not individuals vs individuals. Level 20's aren't forced to compete against behemoths. They are on a team with other behemoths going against behemoths and lvl 20's.

I think a handful of lvl 20 players should be able to compete with one behemoth, and that is pretty much the case right now. The idea of basing balance around gear is to actually draw an equivalence between X players with equipment E and Y players with equipment E' and use that to build balance bottom up.

[Rumblood]

I think a handful of lvl 20 players should be able to compete with one behemoth, and that is pretty much the case right now.

I agree they did a good job with that over time. When I first started you could have 10 or 15 players trying to take down Goretooth with almost no hope of them winning. I do think they may have overdone it a bit as it seems most people die in 1-4 hits. I think people should die in 2-12 personally. (2 being lightest armor vs most damaging weapon, 12 being heaviest armor vs least damaging weapon)

The idea of basing balance around gear is to actually draw an equivalence between X players with equipment E and Y players with equipment E' and use that to build balance bottom up.

Well, given the balance issues surrounding specific weapons vs other specific weapons, both in stats and gold costs, I simply don't see how this would resolve the team auto-balance issue effectively and not induce a whole barrage of "balance is fucked!" threads based around individual arguments over weapons. Not to mention that anytime they buff/balance a weapon or class the cry would go out for changing the auto-balance formula accordingly.
It would kick off a whole new OP arms race where you begin to see certain weapons exclusively because they are more likely to put you on a "winning" team.

I simply think that there are more direct methods of achieving a viable auto-balance. Of course, once that is done we will see a renewed push from the entire community for a change to the multiplier system because nobody will be able to get past x3.

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

Equipment value doesn't have shit to do with gear efficiency, medium armor (+ heavy gauntlets) is by far the best armor, the best horses aren't plated chargers, the best 2hs are germans not flameberges, horsethrowers aren't nearly worth the 60k their gear costs, and the list goes on
Getting rid of upkeep and balancing gear better instead of having some worse gear would be a much better idea, sorry to say but this is almost as dumb an idea as Tomas' no upkeep one.

[Kafein]

Equipment value doesn't have shit to do with gear efficiency, medium armor (+ heavy gauntlets) is by far the best armor, the best horses aren't plated chargers, the best 2hs are germans not flameberges, horsethrowers aren't nearly worth the 60k their gear costs, and the list goes on
Getting rid of upkeep and balancing gear better instead of having some worse gear would be a much better idea, sorry to say but this is almost as dumb an idea as Tomas' no upkeep one.

I agree, due to previous rebalancing and even when upkeep was just introduced, expensive stuff was far from being always better. But the reason PC and plate aren't good today is precisely because upkeep failed and we needed to balance those things anyway. With a new system we could have plate and plated chargers returned to their former glory.

The closer equipment value gets to a real performance average, the better.

[BlueKnight]

We all know it, today upkeep is only a problem for beginners.

People use what they want whenever they want, and this forces level 20 toons to compete with behemoths that take 10+ solid hits to die. On top of that, upkeep can create a significant hole in a new player's budget, or at least slow him down considerably, even with subpar equipment.

I am honestly sure that most of players take upkeep into account, seriously. I don't understand why you think that upkeep isn't important. For example I really wanted to look like a knight and all, fuck protection and stuff, it's fashion purposes only but even though I can't go in that stuff or I'll go bunkrupt. And I don't like selling loompoints because I feel like my character is regressing  . It hurts when you pay 2k upkeep for 2 items.

What is more, you exaggerate when it comes to 10+hits. Maybe if you are fighting vs full str tincan with a simple sword or doing right swing with unloomed espada eslavona because each class has a lot of good weapons to deal damage with. Even OP rondel dagger hurts, not to mention italian, NCS, Nordic war sword, military cleaver, warhammer, ACS, steel pick, langes messer, niuweidao, liuyedao, iberian mace, military hammer, elite scimitar, KAS, Broad one handed battle axe, grosse messer (just mentioning 1h). They all deal good damage.

Don't exaggerate with the amount of hits in balance discussion because it makes you look biased.

EDIT: Zlisch, Heavy gauntlets are for punching peasants and because my 2h has hands exposed all the time so needs great hand protection (I know it doesn't change anything in game but some realism+roleplay purposes). If I wanted most effective gauntlets I would go for scale gauntlets or plate mittens. Upkeep is huge.

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

I agree, due to previous rebalancing and even when upkeep was just introduced, expensive stuff was far from being always better. But the reason PC and plate aren't good today is precisely because upkeep failed and we needed to balance those things anyway. With a new system we could have plate and plated chargers returned to their former glory.

The closer equipment value gets to a real performance average, the better.

And you think everyone and their mother won't use plate and a plated charger in order to get the best kd if you make it amazingly strong even if puts two noneplatedchargerriders against every platedchargerrider? Even the people who wouldn't want plate and a charger will eventually change just like a lot of antiarchery/cav guys became cav/range so they didn't have to deal with cav/range.

Personally I see two ways to properly do upkeep and balancing, either remove upkeep and do your best to balance everything (besides weaboo gear ofc), remove looms, and preferably remove leveling as well, or remove upkeep, lower gold gain extensively, make expensive gear a lot better, change the amount of exp each level takes so that you get to level 10 at the time you'd normally get to 30, 15 to where you'd be 31, and then have the amount of time it takes to level go down again in a linear path so that level 30 would be level 32, and after 30 have an option to retire and get to keep a downgraded version of one of your items + 10% of your gold, and a small chance that your char permadies each round you play, which would leave your next gen with no gold or items, both those options would be a lot more fun than this middle of the road stuff.

[BlueKnight]

Welcome in native or early unbalanced crpg 

[Daunt_Flockula]

I am not sure how the proposed system would work out but it would make sense to a certain extent at least for me.

The best class I can play with is cavalry and ever since I started, I have been unable to do that because of the monstrous upkeep fees that come along with having a decent horse.

All because of the upkeep, I have been forced to play some other class and I chose polearm infantry at that. This has a plus side too, as it has honed my blocking and attacking skills beyond what there used to be (not suggesting I have become a pro or anything, some of you might still call me a nab).

Nevertheless, I would love to play cavalry someday without having to worry about some 1k-ish upkeep that might possibly hit me at the end of the round.